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July 31st r I013* 


JO THE PUBLIC »•• 

In the execution of Its purpose to give educational value and 

IDorai worth to the recreatlooal activities of the boyhood of Amerioa^ 

i 

the leaders of the Boy Scout Movement quickly learned that to effeotivelj^ 

I 'W' -• ^ *■ — ' ■ B 

carry out its program, the boy tsust be influenced not only in his oat*> 

>.-• • . r vft 

«f*door life but also in the diversions of his other leisure moments.v 
3t is at such times that the boy is captured by the tales of daring 
enterprises and adventurous good times. 'Vhat now is needful is not 
that ‘his taste should be thwarted but trained.^ There should constant!^ 
he preseffte^CdKhim the books .the boy likes best, yet always the books 

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^hat trill he best for the boy.' As a matter of fact, however, the boy's 

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taste is being constantly vitiated and exploited by the great mass of 
cheap Juvenile literature^ 


Jo help anxiously oonoemed parents and educators to meet this 

/ V'' ■ .-T. — - ' 

grave peril, the Library Cosmission of the Boy Scouts of^America has 
been orgaoixed. every BOY'S library is the result of their labors. 

All the hooks chosen have been approved by them. ^ The Commission is 
; ■ ■' 
composed of the following members: George F. Bowerman, Librarian, Public 

Dibrary of the District of Columbia, Washington, D, C. ; Harrison W, 

Graver, Librarian, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Pa» ; Claude G, Leland^ 

Superintendents Bureau of Libraries, Board of. Education, Rev York Cityi 


'DO A'OOOD TDItH 




Ttafayd P. Stevens." Librarian;' Pratt institute Free LlbraryrBbooklTa, 
New yorJt; together with the Editorial Board of our liovement.' William 
0* liurray, George D* Pratt end PranX Preabrey, with n-anklln K. tlathiews^, 
Chief Scout Librarian^ ea Secretary. 


In selecting 'the boohs, the Commieslon has ^oseo only such as 
e^re of interest to boys, the first twenty-five being either works of 

; 4 ;, / V?V I • -a 

fiction or etlrring stories of adventurous experiences.- In later lists, 
books of a mors serious sort will be included. It is hoped that as 
(fiany as twenty.-five may be added to the Library each year» 


Thanks are due the several publishers who have helped to 

*> " '' 

thaugurate this new, department of our work.- Without their oo*operatloo 

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in making available 'foe* popular priced editions some of the best books 

ever published for boys, the promotion of £V£By BOy'3 LIBB4BY would. 

• ... ^ 

have been impossible^, 

Wo wlsh^bocv to express our heartiest gratitude to the Library 
Commission, who, wlttrffht compensation, have placed their vast experienca 
end imofinse resourceh;4at the service of our Movement. 


The Commiselon invites suggestions as to future' book^t<rb^ 
Included la the Libr^r* - Librarians, teachers, parents^and all^ther^ 
interested in welfe:*h work for boys, can render a unlQus service by- 
forwarding to’ National Headquarters lists of such books as in their 
judgment would be euitsble for EVERy B0Y‘S LIBRARY* 

'Signed 


Chief Sbottt" Ekacuuye» 


i 


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“The preserver of the American bison.” 

Jones at the left of the picture.^ 


EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY— BOY SCOUT EDITION 


THE LAST OF 
THE PLAINSMEN 


BY 

ZANE GREY 

I! 

AUTHOR OF 

RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE. 
DESERT GOLD, ETC. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 
BY THE AUTHOR 


NEW YORK 

GROSSET & DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS 


l?/3? 



Copyright, 1908, by 

THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY 




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All Rights Reserved 
Copyright 

A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
1911 

Second Edition, June 3, 1911 


Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London, England 


Bequest 

Albert Adsit Clemonfll 
Aug. 24 , 1938 
(Not available lor exchange) 



PREFATORY NOTE 


B uffalo JONES needs no introduction to 
American sportsmen, but to those of my 
readers who are unacquainted with him a few 
words may not be amiss. 

He was born sixty-two years ago on the Illinois 
prairie, and he has devoted practically all of his life 
to the pursuit of wild animals. It has been a pursuit 
which owed Its unflagging energy and indomitable 
purpose to a singular passion, almost an obsession, 
to capture alive, not to kill. He has caught and 
broken the will of every well-known wild beast native 
to western North America. Killing was repulsive 
to him. He even disliked the sight of a sporting 
rifle, though for years necessity compelled him to 
earn his livelihood by supplying the meat of buffalo 
to the caravans crossing the plains. At last, seeing , 
that the extinction of the noble beasts was Inevitable, 
he smashed his rifle over a wagon wheel and vowed ^ 
to save the species. For ten years he labored, pur- 
suing, capturing and taming buffalo, for which the 
West gave him fame, and the name Preserver of the 
American Bison. 


Prefatory Note 


As civilization encroached upon the plains Buffalo 
Jones ranged slowly westward; and to-day an isolated 
desert-bound plateau on the north rim of the Grand 
Canon of Arizona is his home. There his buffalo 
browse with the mustang and deer, and are as free 
as ever they were on the rolling plains. 

In the spring of 1907 I was the fortunate com- 
panion of the old plainsman on a trip across the 
desert, and a hunt in that wonderful country of 
yellow crags, deep canons and giant pines. I want 
to tell about it. I want to show the color and beauty 
of those painted cliffs and the long, brown-matted 
bluebell-dotted aisles in the grand forests; I want to 
give a suggestion of the tang of the dry, cool air; 
and particularly I want to throw, a little light upon 
the life and nature of that strange character and 
remarkable man, Buffalo Jones. 

Happily in remembrance a writer can live over 
his experiences, and see once more the moon- 
blanched silver mountain peaks against the dark 
blue sky; hear the lonely sough of the night- 
wind through the pines; feel the dance of wild 
expectation in the quivering pulse; the stir, the thrill, 
the joy of hard action in perilous montents; the 
mystery of man’s yearning for the unattainable. 

As a boy I read of Boone with a throbbing heart, 
and the silent moccasined, vengeful Wetzel I loved. 

vl 


Prefatory Note 

I pored over the deeds of later men — Custer and 
Carson, those heroes of the plains. And as a man 
I came to see the wonder, the tragedy of their lives, 
and to write about them. It has been my destiny — 
what a happy fulfillment of my dreams of border 
spirit! — to live for a while in the fast-fading wild 
environment which produced these great men with 
the last of the great plainsmen. 

Zane Grey. 



vii 




t 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I 

The Arizona Desert 



• 

• 

PAGE 

• 3 

II 

The Range 



• 

• 

. 29 

III 

The Last Herd 



• 

• 

• 54 

IV 

The Trail 



• 

• 

• 75 

V 

Oak Spring 



• 

• 

. 99 

VI 

The White Mustang 



• 

• 

. 109 

VII 

Snake Gulch . 



• 


. 123 

VIII 

Naza! Naza! Naza! . 



• 

• 

. 141 

IX 

The Land of the Musk-Ox 


• 

• 

. 152 

X 

Success and Failure 



• 

• 

. 168 

XI 

On to the Siwash . 



• 

• 

. 191 

XII 

Old Tom 




• 

. 213 

XIII 

Singing Cliffs 



• 

• 

.234 

XIV 

All Heroes But One 



• 

• 

. 253 

XV 

Jones on Cougars . 



• 

• 

. 273 

XVI 

Kitty 






XVII 

Conclusion 



o 

• 

• 3 ” 


Sx 






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ILLUSTRATIONS 


The preserver of the American bison . .Frontispiece 

The color effect here was beyond all description. . 20 

The blood-hued Rio Colorado . . ^ . 21 

A dangerous crossing . 28 

‘‘ Grotesque and striking monuments to the marvel- 
ous persistence of the desert wind .... 29 

Oak Spring was pleasantly situated in a grove of 
oaks and pihons 112 

‘‘The wild horses thundered on 113 

Snake Gulch had character and sublimity . . .132 

The art of a prehistoric race 133 

“ Symbols recording the history of a bygone people . 138 

Sounder suddenly broke down a trail .... 226 

The death of the mountain king 227 

The lion country 290 

A few feet above us, in the large branches, crouched 
our first lion 291 

“The cougar spat hissingly at Jones .... 294 

. 295 


Sought safety in another pine . 



f 

THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN 





t " ' i 




f I 


I 



CHAPTER I 


THE ARIZONA DESERT 

O NE afternoon, far out on the sun-baked waste 
of sage, we made camp near a clump of 
withered pihon trees. The cold desert wind 
came down upon us with the sudden darkness. Even 
the Mormons, who were finding the trail for us across 
the drifting sands, forgot to sing and pray at sun- 
down. We huddled round the campfire, a tired and 
silent little group. When out of the lonely, melan- 
choly night some wandering Navajos stole like 
shadows to our fire, we hailed their advent with 
delight. They were good-natured Indians, willing 
to barter a blanket or bracelet; and one of them, a 
tall, gaunt fellow, with the bearing of a chief, could 
speak a little English. 

“ How,” said he, in a deep chest voice. 

“Hello, Noddlecoddy,” greeted Jim Emmett, the 
Mormon guide. 

“ Ugh ! ” answered the Indian. 

“ Big paleface — Buffalo Jones — big chief — ^buffalo 
man,” introduced Emmett, indicating Jones. 

3 


> 

The Last of the Plainsmen 

“ How.’’ The Navajo spoke with dignity, and 
extended a friendly hand. 

“ Jones big white chief — rope buffalo — tie up 
tight,” continued Emmett, making motions with his 
arm, as if he were whirling a lasso. 

“ No big — heap small buffalo,” said the Indian, 
holding his hand level with his knee, and smiling 
broadly. 

Jones, erect, rugged, brawny, stood in the full 
light of the campfire. He had a dark, bronzed, 
inscrutable face; a stern mouth and square jaw, keen 
eyes, half-closed from years of searching the wide 
plains, and deep furrows wrinkling his cheeks. A 
strange stillness enfolded his features — the tran- 
quility earned from a long life of adventure. 

He held up both muscular hands to the Navajo, 
and spread out his fingers. 

“ Rope buffalo — heap big buffalo — heap many — 
one sun.” 

The Indian straightened up, but kept his friendly 
smile. 

“ Me big chief,” went on Jones, “ me go far 
north — Land of Little Sticks — Naza! Naza! — rope 

musk-ox; rope White Manitou of Great Slaves 

Naza! Naza!” 

“ Naza ! ” replied the Navajo, pointing to the 
North Star; “ no — no.” 


4 


The Arizona Desert 


K 


Yes me big paleface — me come long way 
toward setting sun — go cross Big Water — go Buck- 
skin — Siwash — chase cougar.” 

The cougar, or mountain lion, is a Navajo god, 
and the Navajos hold him in as much fear and 
reverence as do the Great Slave Indians the musk-ox. 

No kill cougar,” continued Jones, as the Indian’s 
bold features hardened. “ Run cougar horseback — 
run long way — dogs chase cougar long time — chase 
cougar up tree! Me big chief — me climb tree — 
climb high up — lasso cougar — rope cougar — tie 
cougar all tight.” 

The Navajo’s solemn face relaxed. 

“ White man heap fun. No.” 

“ Yes,” cried Jones, extending his great arms. 
“ Me strong; me rope cougar — me tie cougar; ride 
off wigwam, keep cougar alive.” 

“ No,” replied the savage vehemently. 

“ Yes,” protested Jones, nodding earnestly. 

“'No,” answered the Navajo, louder, raising his 
dark head. 

“ Yes! ” shouted Jones. 

“ Big lie ! ” the Indian thundered. 

Jones joined good-naturedly in the laugh at his 
expense. The Indian had crudely voiced a skepticism 
I had heard more delicately hinted in New York, 
and singularly enough, which had strengthened on 
5 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


our way West, as we met ranchers, prospectors and 
cowboys. But those few men I had fortunately met, 
who really knew Jones, more than overbalanced the 
doubt and ridicule cast upon him. I recalled a 
scarred old veteran of the plains, who had talked to 
me in true Western bluntness: 

“ Say, young feller, I heerd yer couldn’t git acrost 
the canon fer the deep snow on the north rim. Wal, 
ye’re lucky. Now, yer hit the trail fer New York, 
an’ keep goin’ ! Don’t ever tackle the desert, ’spe- 
cially with them Mormons. They’ve got water on 
the brain, wusser ’n religion. It’s two hundred an’ 
fifty miles from Flagstaff to Jones’ range, an’ only 
two drinks on the trail. I know this hyar Buffalo 
Jones. I knowed him way back in the seventies, when 
he was doin’ them ropin’ stunts thet made him famous 
as the preserver of the American bison. I know 
about that crazy trip of his’n to the Barren Lands, 
after musk-ox. An’ I reckon I kin guess what he’ll 
do over there in the Siwash. He’ll rope cougars — ■ 
sure he will — an’ watch ’em jump. Jones would rope 
the devil, an’ tie him down if the lasso didn’t burn. 
Oh! he’s hell on ropin’ things. An’ he’s wusser ’n 
hell on men, an’ bosses, an’ dogs.” 

All that my well-meaning friend suggested made 
me, of course, only the more eager to go with Jones. 
Where I had once been Interested In the old buffalo 


The Arizona Desert 


hunter, I was now fascinated. And now I was with 
him in the desert and seeing him as he was, a simple, 
quiet man, who fitted the mountains and the silences, 
and the long reaches of distance. 

“ It does seem hard to believe — all this about 
Jones,’* remarked Judd, one of Emmett’s men. 
“ How could a man have the strength and the nerve? 
And isn’t it cruel to keep wild animals in captivity? 
Isn’t it against God’s word? ” 

Quick as speech could flow, Jones quoted: “ And 
God said, ‘ Let us make man in our image, and give 
him dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowls of 
the air, over all the cattle, and over every creeping 
thing that creepeth upon the earth ’ I ” 

“Dominion — over all the beasts of the field!” 
repeated Jones, his big voice rolling out. He 
clenched his huge fists, and spread wide his long 
arms. “ Dominion I That was God’s word! ” The 
power and intensity of him could be felt. Then he 
relaxed, dropped his arms, and once more grew calm. 
But he had shown a glimpse of the great, strange 
and absorbing passion of his life. Once he had 
told me how, when a mere child, he had hazarded 
limb and neck to capture a fox squirrel, how he had 
held on to the vicious little animal, though it bit his 
hand through; how he had never learned to play 
the games of boyhood; that when the youths of the 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


little Illinois village were at play, he roamed the 
prairies, or the rolling, wooded hills, or watched a 
gopher hole. That boy was father of the man: for 
sixty years an enduring passion for dominion over 
wild animals had possessed him, and made his life 
an endless pursuit. 

Our guests, the Navajos, departed early, and van- 
ished silently in the gloom of the desert. We set- 
tled down again into a quiet that was broken only 
by the low chant-like song of a praying Mormon. 
Suddenly the hounds bristled, and old Mozc, a surly 
and aggressive dog, rose and barked at some real 
or imaginary desert prowler. A sharp command 
from Jones made Moze crouch down, and the other 
hounds cowered close together. 

“ Better tie up the dogs,” suggested Jones. “ Like 
as not coyotes run down here from the hills.” 

The hounds were my especial delight. But Jones 
regarded them with considerable contempt. When 
all was said, this was no small wonder, for that 
quintet of long-eared canines would have tried the 
patience of a saint. Old Moze was a Missouri hound 
that Jones had procured in that State of uncertain 
qualities; and the dog had grown old over coon- 
trails. He was black and white, grizzled and battle- 
scarred; and if ever a dog had an evil eye, Moze 
was that dog. He had a way of wagging his tail — 
8 


The 'Arizona Desert 


an Indeterminate, equivocal sort of wag, as If he real- 
ized his ugliness and knew he stood little chance of 
making friends, but was still hopeful and willing. 
As for me, the first time he manifested this evidence 
of a good heart under a rough coat, he won me 
forever. 

To tell of Moze’s derelictions up to that time 
would take more space than would a history of the 
whole trip; but the enumeration of several incidents 
will at once stamp him as a dog of character, and will 
establish the fact that even If his progenitors had 
never taken any blue ribbons, they had at least 
bequeathed him fighting blood. At Flagstaff we 
chained him In the yard of a livery stable. Next 
morning we found him hanging by his chain on the 
other side of an eight-foot fence. We took him 
down, expecting to have the sorrowful duty of bury- 
ing him; but Moze shook himself, wagged his tail, 
and then pitched Into the livery stable dog. As a 
matter of fact, fighting was his forte. He whipped 
all of the dogs in Flagstaff; and when our blood- 
hounds came on from California, he put three of them 
hors de combat at once, and subdued the pup with a 
savage growl. His crowning feat, however, made 
even the stoical Jones open his mouth In amaze. We 
had taken Moze to the El Tovar at the Grand 
Canon, and finding It Impossible to get over to the 
9 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

north rim, we left him with one of Jones’s men, 
called Rust, who was working on the canon trail. 
Rust’s instructions were to bring Moze to Flagstaff 
in two weeks. He brought the dog a little ahead of 
time, and roared his appreciation of the relief it was 
to get the responsibility off his hands. And he related 
many strange things, most striking of which was how 
Moze had broken his chain and plunged into the 
raging Colorado River, and tried to swim it just 
above the terrible Sockdolager Rapids. Rust and 
his fellow-workmen watched the dog disappear in the 
yellow, wrestling, turbulent whirl of waters, and had 
heard his knell in the booming roar of the falls. 
Nothing but a fish could live in that current; nothing 
but a bird could scale those perpendicular marble 
walls. That night, however, when the men crossed 
on the tramway, Moze met them with a wag of his 
tail. He had crossed the river, and he had come 
back! 

To the four reddish-brown, big-framed blood- 
hounds I had given the names of Don, Tige, Jude 
and Ranger; and by dint of persuasion, had succeeded 
in establishing some kind of family relation between 
them and Moze. This night I tied up the blood- 
liounds, after bathing and salving their sore feet; 
and I left Moze free, for he grew fretful and surly 
under restraint. 


10 


The Arizona Desert 


The Mormons, prone, dark, blanketed figures, lay 
on the sand. Jones was crawling into his bed. I 
walked a little way from the dying fire, and faced 
the north, where the desert stretched, mysterious and 
illimitable. How solemn and still it was ! I drew in 
a great breath of the cold air, and thrilled with a 
nameless sensation. Something was there, away to 
the northward; it called to me from out of the dark 
and gloom ; I was going to meet it. 

I lay down to sleep with the great blue expanse 
open to my eyes. The stars were very large, and 
wonderfully bright, yet they seemed so much farther 
off than I had ever seen them. The wind softly 
sifted the sand. I hearkened to the tinkle of the 
cowbells on the hobbled horses. The last thing I 
remembered was old Moze creeping close to my side, 
seeking the warmth of my body. 

When I awakened, a long, pale line showed out of 
the dun-colored clouds in the cast. It slowly length- 
ened, and tinged to red. Then the morning broke, 
and the slopes of snow on the San Francisco peaks 
behind us glowed a delicate pink. The Mormons 
were up and doing with the dawn. They were stal- 
wart men, rather silent, and all workers. It was 
interesting to see them pack for the day’s journey. 
They travded with wagons and mules, in the most 
primitive way, which Jones assured me was exactly 
11 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


as their fathers had crossed the plains fifty years 
before, on the trail to Utah. 

All morning we made good time, and as we 
descended into the desert, the air became warmer, the 
scrubby cedar growth began to fail, and the bunches 
of sage were few and far between. I turned often 
to gaze back at the San Francisco peaks. The snow- 
capped tips glistened and grew higher, and stood 
out in startling relief. Some one said they could be 
seen two hundred miles across the desert, and were 
a landmark and a fascination to all travelers thither- 
ward. 

I never raised my eyes to the north that I did not 
draw my breath quickly and grow chill with awe and 
bewilderment with the marvel of the desert. The 
scaly red ground descended gradually; bare red 
knolls, like waves, rolled away northward; black 
buttes reared their flat heads; long ranges of sand 
flowed between them like streams, and all sloped 
away to merge into gray, shadowy obscurity, into 
wild and desolate, dreamy and misty nothingness. 

“ Do you see those white sand dunes there, more 
to the left? ” asked Emmett. “ The Little Colorado 
runs in there. How far does it look to you? ” 

“ Thirty miles, perhaps,” I replied, adding ten 
miles to my estimate. 

“ It’s seventy-five. We’ll get there day after 
12 


The Arizona Desert 


to-morrow. If the snow in the mountains has begun 
to melt, we’ll have a time getting across.” 

That afternoon, a hot wind blew in my face, carry- 
ing fine sand that cut and blinded. It filled my 
throat, sending me' to the water cask till I was 
ashamed. When I fell into my bed at night, I never 
turned. The next day was hotter; the wind blew 
harder; the sand stung sharper. 

About noon the following day, the horses whin- 
nied, and the mules roused out of their tardy gait. 
“ They smell water,” said Emmett. And despite 
the heat, and the sand in my nostrils, I smelled it, 
too. The dogs, poor foot-sore fellows, trotted on 
ahead down the trail. A few more miles of hot sand 
and gravel and red stone brought us around a low 
mesa to the Little Colorado. 

It was a wide stream of swiftly running, reddish- 
muddy water. In the channel, cut by floods, little 
streams trickled and meandered in all directions. The 
main part of the river ran in close to the bank we 
were on.^ The dogs lolled in the water; the horses 
and mules tried to run in, but were restrained; the 
men drank, and bathed their faces. According to my 
Flagstaff adviser, this was one of the two drinks I 
would get on the desert, so I availed myself heartily 
of the opportunity. The water was full of sand, but 
cold and gratefully thirst-quenching. 

13 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

The Little Colorado seemed no more to me than 
a shallow creek; I heard nothing sullen or menacing 
in its musical, flow. 

“Doesn’t look bad, eh?” queried Emmett, who 
read my thought. “ You’d be surprised to learn how 
many men and Indians, horses, sheep and wagons 
are buried under that quicksand.” 

The secret was out, and I wondered no more. At 
once the stream and wet bars of sand took on a 
different color. I removed my boots, and waded 
out to a little bar. The sand seemed quite firm, but 
water oozed out around my feet; and when I stepped, 
the whole bar shook like jelly. I pushed my foot 
through the crust, and the cold, wet sand took hold, 
and tried to suck me down. 

“ How can you ford this stream with horses? ” I 
asked Emmett. 

“We must take our chances,” replied he. “ We’ll 
hitch two teams to one wagon, and run the horses. 
I’ve forded here at worse stages than this. Once 
a team got stuck, and I had to leave it; another time 
the water was high, and washed me downstream.” 

Emmett sent his son into the stream on a mule. 
The rider lashed his mount, and plunging, splashing, 
crossed at a pace near a gallop. He returned in the 
same manner, and reported one bad place near the 
other side. 


14 


The Arizona Desert 


Jones and I got on the first wagon and tried to 
coax up the dogs, but they would not come. Emmett 
had to lash the four horses to start them ; and other 
Mormons riding alongside, yelled at them, and used 
their whips. The wagon bowled into the water with 
a tremendous splash. We were wet through before 
we had gone twenty feet. The plunging horses were 
lost in yellow spray; the stream rushed through the 
wheels; the Mormons yelled. I wanted to see, but 
was lost in a veil of yellow mist. Jones yelled in 
my ear, but I could not hear what he said. Once 
the wagon wheels struck a stone or log, almost lurch- 
ing us overboard. A muddy splash blinded me. I 
cried out in my excitement, and punched Jones in the 
back. Next moment, the keen exhilaration of the 
ride gave way to horror. We seemed to drag, and 
almost stop. Some one roared: “Horse down!” 
One instant of painful suspense, in which imagination 
pictured another tragedy added to the record of this 
deceitful river — a moment filled with intense feeling, 
and sensation of splash, and yell, and fury of action; 
then the three able horses dragged their comrade 
out of the quicksand. He regained his feet, and 
plunged on. Spurred by fear, the horses increased 
their efforts, and amid clouds of spray, galloped the 
remaining distance to the other side. 

Jones looked disgusted. Like all plainsmen, he 
15 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

hated water. Emmett and his men calmly unhitched. 
No trace of alarm, or even of excitement showed in 
their bronzed faces. 

“We made that fine and easy,” remarked Emmett. 

So I sat down and wondered what Jones and 
Emmett, and these men would consider really hazard- 
ous. I began to have a feeling that I would find 
out; that experience for me was but in its infancy; 
that far across the desert the something which had 
called me would show hard, keen, perilous life. And 
I began to think of reserve powers of fortitude and 
endurance. 

The other wagons were brought across without 
mishap; but the dogs did not come with them. 
Jones called and called. The dogs howled and 
howled. Finally I waded out over the wet bars 
and little streams to a point several hundred yards 
nearer the dogs. Moze was lying down, but the 
others were whining and howling in a state of great 
perturbation. I called and called. They answered, 
and even ran into the water, but did not start across. 

“ Hyah, Moze! hyah, you Indian! ” I yelled, los- 
ing my patience. “ You’ve already swum the Big 
Colorado, and this is only a brook. Come on ! ” 

This appeal evidently touched Moze, for he 
barked, and plunged in. He made the water fly, 
and when carried off his feet, breasted the current 
16 


The Arizona Desert 


with energy and power. He made shore almost 
even with me, and wagged his tail. Not to be out- 
done, Jude, Tige and Don followed suit, and first 
one and then another was swept off his feet and 
carried downstream. They landed below me. This 
left Ranger, the pup, alone on the other shore. ,Of 
all the pitiful yelps ever uttered by a frightened and 
lonely puppy, his were the most forlorn I had ever 
heard. Time after time he plunged in, and with 
many bitter howls of distress, went back. I kept 
calling, and at last, hoping to make him come by a 
show of indifference, I started away. This broke 
his heart. Putting up his head, he let out a long, 
melancholy wail, which for aught I knew might have 
been a prayer, and then consigned himself to the 
yellow current. Ranger swam like a boy learning. 
He seemed to be afraid to get wet. His forefeet 
were continually pawing the air in front of his nose. 
When he struck the swift place, he went downstream 
like a flash, but still kept swimming valiantly. I 
tried to follow along the sand-bar, but found it 
I impossible. I encouraged him by yelling. He 
drifted far below, stranded on an island, crossed it, 
and plunged in again, to make shore almost out of 
my sight. And when at last I got to dry sand, there 
was Ranger, wet and disheveled, but consciously 
proud and happy. 


17 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

After lunch we entered upon the seventy-mile 
stretch from the Little to the Big Colorado. 

Imagination had pictured the desert for me as a 
vast, sandy plain, flat and monotonous. Reality 
showed me desolate mountains gleaming bare in the 
sun, long lines of red bluffs, white sand dunes, and 
hills of blue clay, areas of level ground — in all, a 
many-hued, boundless world in itself, wonderful and 
beautiful, fading all around into the purple haze of 
deceiving distance. 

Thin, clear, sweet, dry, the desert air carried a 
languor, a dreaminess, tidings of far-off things, and 
an enthralling promise. The fragrance of flowers, 
the beauty and grace of women, the sweetness of 
music, the mystery of life — all seemed to float on that 
promise. It was the air breathed by the lotus-eaters, 
when they dreamed, and wandered no more. 

Beyond the Little Colorado, we began to climb 
again. The sand was thick; the horses labored; the 
drivers shielded their faces. The do^s began to limp 
and lag. Ranger had to be taken into a wagon ; and 
then, one by one, all of the other dogs except Moze. 
He refused to ride, , and trotted along with his head 
down. . 

Far to the front the pink cliffs, the ragged mesas, 
the dark, volcanic spurs of the Big Colorado stood 
up and beckoned us onward. But they were a far 
IS 


The Arizona Desert 


hundred miles across the shifting sands, and baked 
clay, and ragged rocks. Always in the rear rose the 
San Francisco peaks, cold and pure, startlingly clear 
and close in the rare atmosphere. 

We camped near another water hole, located in a 
deep, yellow-colored gorge, crumbling to pieces, a 
ruin of rock, and silent as the grave. In the bottom 
of the canon was a pool of water, covered with green 
scum. My thirst was effectually quenched by the 
mere sight of it. I slept poorly, and lay for hours 
watching the great stars. The silence was painfully 
oppressive. If Jones had not begun to give a respect- 
able imitation of the exhaust pipe on a steamboat, I 
should have been compelled to shout aloud, or get 
up; but his snoring would have dispelled anything. 
The morning came gray and cheerless. I got up 
stiff and sore, with a tongue like a rope. 

All day long we ran the gauntlet of the hot, flying 
sand. Night came again, a cold, windy night. I 
slept well until a mule stepped on my bed, which was 
conducive to restlessness. At dav/n, cold, gray clouds 
tried to blot out the rosy east. I could hardly get 
up. My lips were cracked; my tongue swollen to 
twice its natural size; my eyes smarted and burned. 
The barrels and kegs of water were exhausted. 
Holes that had been dug in the dry sand of a dry 
Stream-bed the night before In the morning yielded 
19 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

a scant supply of muddy alkali water, which went to 
the horses. 

Only twice that day did I rouse to anything resem- 
bling enthusiasm. We came to a stretch of country 
showing the wonderful diversity of the desert land. 
A long range of beautifully rounded clay dunes bor- 
dered the trail. So symmetrical were they that I 
imagined them works of sculptors. Light blue, dark 
blue, clay blue, marine blue, cobalt blue — every shade 
of blue was there, but no other color. The other 
time that I awoke to sensations from without was 
when we came to the top of a ridge. We had been 
passing through red-lands. Jones called the place a 
strong, specific word which really was illustrative of 
the heat amid those scaling red ridges. We came 
out where the red changed abruptly to gray. I 
seemed always to see things first, and I cried out: 
“ Look ! here are a red lake and trees ! ” 

“ No, lad, not a lake,” said old Jim, smiling at me; 
“ that’s what haunts the desert traveler. It’s only a 
mirage ! ” 

So I awoke to the realization of that illusive things 
the mirage, a beautiful lie, false as stairs of sand. 
Far northward a clear rippling lake sparkled in the 
sunshine. Tall, stately trees, with waving green foli- 
age, bordered the water. For a long moment it lay 
there, smiling in the sun, a thing almost tangible; 

20 



The color eflFect here was beyond all description 


f 


" - ■■ ■■ ' ' ■■■ ■' ' ^ ' 


I 



‘'The blood-hued Rio Colorado/" 










The Arizona Desert 


and then it faded. I felt a sense of actual loss. So 
real had been the Illusion that I could not believe I 
was not soon to drink and wade and dabble in the 
cool waters. Disappointment was keen. This Is 
what maddens the prospector or sheep-herder lost In t 
the desert. Was it not a terrible thing to be dying 
of thirst, to see sparkling water, almost to smell it> 
and then realize suddenly that all was only a lying 
trick of the desert, a lure, a delusion? I ceased to 
wonder at the Mormons, and their search for water, 
their talk of water. But I had not realized its true 
significance. I had not known what water was. I 
had never appreciated it. So it was my destiny to 
learn that water is the greatest thing on earth. I 
hung over a three-foot hole In a dry stream-bed, and 
watched It ooze and seep through the sand, and fill 
up — oh, so slowly; and I felt it loosen my parched 
tongue, and steal through all my dry body with 
strength and life. Water is said to constitute three 
fourths of the universe. However that may be, on 
the desert It Is the whole world, and all of life. 

Two days passed by, all hot sand and wind and 
glare. The Mormons sang no more at evening; 
Jones was silent; the dogs were limp as rags. 

At Moncauple Wash we ran Into a sandstorm. 
The horses turned their backs to It, and bowed their 
heads patiently. The Mormons covered themselves. 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


I wrapped a blanket round my head and hid behind 
a sage bush. The wind, carrying the sand, made a 
strange hollow roar. All was enveloped in a weird 
yellow opacity. The sand seeped through the sage 
bush and swept by with a soft, rustling sound, not 
unlike the wind In the rye. From time to time I 
raised a corner of my blanket and peeped out. 
Where my feet had stretched was an enormous mound 
of sand. I felt the blanket, weighted down, slowly 
settle over me. 

Suddenly as it had come, the sandstorm passed. 
It left a changed world for us. The trail was cov- 
ered; the wheels hub-deep in sand; the horses, walk- 
ing sand dunes. I could not close my teeth without 
grating harshly on sand. 

We journeyed onward, and passed long lines of 
petrified trees, some a hundred feet in length, lying 
as they had fallen, thousands of years before. White 
ants crawled among the ruins. Slowly climbing the 
sandy trail, we circled a great red bluff with jagged 
peaks, that had seemed an Interminable obstacle. A 
scant growth of cedar and sage again made Its 
appearance. Here we halted to pass another night. 
Under a cedar I heard the plaintive, piteous bleat of 
an animal. I searched, and presently found a little 
black and white lamb, scarcely able to stand. It 
came readily to me, and I carried it to the wagon. 

22 


The Arizona Desert 


“ That’s a Navajo lamb,” said Emmett. “ It’s 
lost. There are Navajo Indians close by.” 

I “ ‘Away in the desert we heard its cry,’ ” quoted 
one of the Mormons. 

[ Jones and I climbed the red mesa near camp to 
see the sunset. All the western world was ablaze in 
golden glory. Shafts of light shot toward the zenith ; 
and bands of paler gold, tinging to rose, circled away 
from the fiery, sinking globe. Suddenly the sun 
sank, the gold changed to gray, then to purple, and 
shadows formed in the deep gorge at our feet. So 
sudden was the transformation that soon it was night, 
the solemn, impressive night of the desert. A still- 
ness that seemed too sacred to break clasped the place; 
it was infinite ; it held the bygone ages, and eternity. 

More days, and miles, miles, miles! The last 
day’s ride to the Big Colorado was unforgettable. 
We rode toward the head of a gigantic red cliff 
pocket, a veritable inferno, immeasurably hot, glar- 
ing, awful. It towered higher and higher above us. 
When we reached a point of this red barrier, we 
heard the dull rumbling roar of water, and we came 
out, at length, on a winding trail cut in the face of 
a bluff overhanging the Colorado River. The first 
sight of most famous and much-heralded wonders of 
nature is often disappointing; but never can this be 
said of the blood-hued Rio Colorado. If it had 

23 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


beauty, it was beauty that appalled. So riveted was 
my gaze that I could hardly turn it across the river, 
where Emmett proudly pointed out his lonely home 
- — an oasis set down amidst beetling red cliffs. How 
grateful to the eye was the green of alfalfa and 
cottonwood I Going round the bluff trail, the wheels 
had only a foot of room to spare; and the sheer 
descent into the red, turbid, congested river was 
terrifying. 

I saw the constricted rapids, where the Colorado 
took its plunge into the box-like head of the Grand 
Canon of Arizona ; and the deep, reverberating boom 
of the river, at flood height, was a fearful thing to 
hear. I could not repress a shudder at the thought 
of crossing above that rapid. 

The bronze walls widened as we proceeded, and 
we got down presently to a level, where a long wire 
cable stretched across the river. Under the cable 
ran a rope. On the other side was an old scow 
moored to the bank. 

“ Are we going across in that? ” I asked Emmett, 
pointing to the boat. 

“ We’ll all be on the other side before dark,” he 
replied cheerily. 

I felt that I would rather start back alone over the 
desert than trust myself in such a craft, on such a 
river. And it was all because I had had experience 

24 


The Arizona Desert 


with bad rivers, and thought I was a judge of danger- 
ous currents. The Colorado slid with a menacing 
roar out of a giant split in the red wall, and whirled, 
eddied, bulged on toward its confinement in the iron- 
ribbed canon below. 

In answer to shots fired, Emmett’s man appeared 
on the other side, and rode down to the ferry land- 
ing. Here he got into a skiff, and rowed laboriously 
upstream for a long distance before he started across, 
and then swung into the current. He swept down 
rapidly, and twice the skiff whirled, and completely 
turned round ; but he reached our bank safely. Tak- 
ing two men aboard he rowed upstream again, close 
to the shore, and returned to the opposite side In 
much the same manner In which he had come over. 

The three men pushed out the scow, and grasping 
the rope overhead, began to pull. The big craft ran 
easily. When the current struck It, the wire cable 
sagged, the water boiled and surged under It, raising 
one end, and then the other. Nevertheless, five min- 
utes were all that were required to pull the boat over. ‘ 

It was a rude, oblong affair, made of heavy planks, 
loosely put together, and It leaked. When Jones ' 
suggested that we get the agony over as quickly as 
possible, I was with him, and we embarked together. 
Jones said he did not like the looks of the tackle; 
and when I thought of his by no means small 
25 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


mechanical skill, I had not added a cheerful idea to 
my consciousness. The horses of the first team had 
to be dragged upon the scow, and once on, they 
reared and plunged. 

When we started, four men pulled the rope, and 
Emmett sat in the stern, with the tackle guys in hand. 
As the current hit us, he let out the guys, which 
maneuver caused the boat to swing stern down 
stream. When it pointed obliquely, he made fast 
the guys again. I saw that this served two purposes : 
the current struck, slid alongside, and over the stern, 
which mitigated the danger, and at the same time 
helped the boat across. 

To look at the river was to court terror, but I had 
to look. It was an infernal thing. It roared in 
hollow, sullen voice, as a monster growling. It had 
a voice, this river, and one strangely changeful. It 
moaned as if in pain — it whined, it cried. Then at 
times it would seem strangely silent. The current 
was as complex and mutable as human life. It boiled, 
beat and bulged. The bulge itself was an incompre- 
hensible thing, like a roaring lift of the waters from 
a submarine explosion. Then it would smooth out, 
and run like oil. It shifted from one channel to 
another, rushed to the center of the river, then swung 
close to one shore or the other. Again it swelled near 
the boat, in great, boiling, hissing eddies. 

26 


The Arizona Desert 


“ Look I See where it breaks through the moun- 
tain I ” yelled Jones in my ear. 

I looked upstream to see the stupendous granite 
walls separated in a gigantic split that must have 
been made by a terrible seismic disturbance; and j 
from this gap poured the dark, turgid, mystic flood. 

I was in a cold sweat when we touched shore, and 
I jumped long before the boat was properly moored. 

Emmett was wet to the waist where the water had 
surged over him. As he sat rearranging some tackle 
I remarked to him that of course he must be a splen- 
did swimmer, or he would not take such risks. 

‘‘No, I can’t swim a stroke,” he replied; “and 
it wouldn’t be any use if I could. Once in there a 
man’s a goner.” 

“You’ve had bad accidents here?” I questioned. 

“ No, not bad. We only drowned two men last 
year. You see, we had to tow the boat up the river, 
and row across, as then we hadn’t the wire. Just 
above, on this side, the boat hit a stone, and the cur- 
rent washed over her, taking off the team and two 
men.” 

“ Didn’t you attempt to rescue them?” I asked, 
after waiting a moment. 

“ No use. They never came up.” 

“ Isn’t the river high now? ” I continued, shudder- 
ing as I glanced out at the whirling logs and drifts. 

27 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

“ High, and coming up. If I don’t get the other 
teams over to-day I’ll wait until she goes down. At 
this season she rises and lowers every day or so, 
until June; then comes the big flood, and we don’t 
lixoss for months.” 

^ I sat for three hours watching Emmett bring over 
the rest of his party, which he did without accident, 
Ibut at the expense of great effort. And all the time 
m my ©afs dinned the roar, the boom, the rumble 
oC this singularly rapacious and purposeful river — a 
river of silt, a red river of dark, sinister meaning, a 
river with terrible work to perform, a river which 
never gave up its dead. 


f 


28 



A dangerous crossing 






Grotesque and striking monuments to the marvelous persistence of the desert wind. 



CHAPTER II 


THE RANGE 


"H'ER a much-needed rest at Emmett’s, we 



bade good-by to him and his hospitable 


^ family, and under the guidance of his man 
once more took to the wind-swept trail. We pursued 
a southwesterly course now, following the lead of 
the craggy red wall that stretched on and on for 
hundreds of miles into Utah. The desert, smoky 
and hot, fell away to the left, and in the foreground 
a dark, irregular line marked the Grand Canon cut- 
ting through the plateau. 

The wind whipped in from the vast, open expanse, 
and meeting an obstacle in the red wall, turned north 
and raced past us. Jones’s hat blew off, stood on 
its rim, and rolled. It kept on rolling, thirty miles 
an hour, more or less ; so fast, at least, that we were 
'a long time catching up to it with a team of horses. 
/Possibly we never would have caught it had not a 
stone checked its flight. Further manifestation of 
the power of the desert wind surrounded us on all 
sides. It had hollowed out huge stones from the 
cliffs, and tumbled them to the plain below; and 


29 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

then, sweeping sand and gravel low across the desert 
floor, had cut them deeply, until they rested on 
slender pedestals, thus sculptoring grotesque and 
striking monuments to the marvelous persistence of 
this element of nature. 

Late that afternoon, as wc reached the height of 
the plateau, Jones woke up and shouted: “Ha! 
there’s Buckskin 1 ” 

Far southward lay a long, black mountain, covered 
with patches of shining snow. I could follow the 
zigzag line of the Grand Canon splitting the desert 
plateau, and saw it disappear in the haze round the 
end of the mountain. From this I got my first clear 
impression of the topography of the country sur- 
rounding our objective point. Buckskin mountain 
ran its blunt end eastward to the canon — in fact, 
formed a hundred miles of the north rim. As it was 
nine thousand feet high it still held the snow, which 
had occasioned our lengthy desert ride to get back of 
the mountain. I could see the long slopes rising out 
of the desert to meet the timber. 

As we bowled merrily down grade I noticed that 
we were no longer on stony ground, and that a little 
scant silvery grass had made its appearance. Then 
little branches of green, with a blue flower, smiled 
out of the clayish sand. 

All of a sudden Jones stood up, and let out a wild 
30 


The Range 


Comanche yell. I was more startled by the yell than 
by the great hand he smashed down on my shoulder, 
and for the moment I was dazed. 

“ There ! look ! look ! the buffalo ! HI I Hi ! Hi I 
Below us, a few miles on a rising knoll, a big herd 
of buffalo shone black in the gold of the evening sun. 
I had not Jones’s incentive, but I felt enthusiasm 
born of the wild and beautiful picture, and added 
my yell to his. The huge, burly leader of the herd 
lifted his head, and after regarding us for a few 
moments calmly went on browsing. 

The desert had fringed away into a grand rolling 
pastureland, walled in by the red cliffs, the slopes of 
Buckskin, and further isolated by the canon. Here 
was a range of twenty-four hundred square miles 
without a foot of barb-wire, a pasture fenced in by 
natural forces, with the splendid feature that the 
buffalo could browse on the plain in winter, and 
go up into the cool foothills of Buckskin in summer. 

From another ridge we saw a cabin dotting the 
rolling plain, and in half an hour we reached it. As 
we climbed down from the wagon a brown and black 
dog came dashing out of the cabin, and promptly 
jumped at Moze. His selection showed poor dis- 
crimination, for Moze whipped him before I could 
separate them. Hearing Jones heartily greeting 
some one, I turned in his direction, only to be 
31 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


distracted by another dog fight. Don had tackled 
Moze for the seventh time. Memory rankled in 
Don, and he needed a lot of whipping, some of which 
he was getting when I rescued him. 

Next moment I was shaking hands with Frank and 
Jim, Jones’s ranchmen. At a glance I liked them 
both. Frank was short and wiry, and had a big, 
ferocious mustache, the effect of which was softened 
by his kindly brown eyes. Jim was tall, a little 
heavier; he had a careless, tidy look; his eyes were 
searching, and though he appeared a young man, his 
hair was white. 

“ I shore am glad to see you all,” said Jim, in slow, 
soft. Southern accent. 

“ Get down, get down,” was Frank’s welcome — a 
typically Western one, for we had already gotten 
down; “an’ come in. You must be worked out. 
Sure you’ve come a long way.” He was quick of 
speech, full of nervous energy, and beamed with 
hospitality. 

The cabin was the rudest kind of log affair, with a 
huge stone fireplace in one end, deer antlers and 
coyote skins on the wall, saddles and cowboys’ traps 
in a corner, a nice, large, promising cupboard, and a 
table and chairs. Jim threw wood on a smoldering 
fire, that soon blazed and crackled cheerily. 

I sank down into a chair with a feeling of blessed 

32 


The Range 


relief. Ten days of desert ride behind me ! Promise 
of wonderful days before me, with the last of the old 
plainsmen! No wonder a sweet sense of ease stole 
^ over me, or that the fire seemed a live and joyously 
i welcoming thing, or that Jim’s deft maneuvers in 
preparation of supper roused in me a rapt admiration. 

“ Twenty calves this spring! ” cried Jones, punch- 
ing me in my sore side. “Ten thousand dollars 
worth of calves ! ” 

He was now altogether a changed man ; he looked 
almost young; his eyes danced, and he rubbed his big 
hands together while he plied Frank with questions. 
In strange surroundings — that is, away from his 
native wilds, Jones had been a silent man ; it had been 
almost impossible to get anything out of him. But 
now I saw that I should come to know the real man. 
In a very few moments he had talked more than on 
all the desert trip, and what he said, added to the 
little I had already learned, put me in possession of 
some interesting information as to his buffalo, 
j Some years before he had conceived the idea of 
hybridizing buffalo with black Galloway cattle; and 
' with the characteristic determination and energy of 
the man, he at once set about finding a suitable range. 
This was difficult, and took years of searching. At 
last the wild north rim of the Grand Canon, a section 
unknown except to a few Indians and mustang 
33 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


hunters, was settled upon. Then the gigantic task' 
of transporting the herd of buffalo by rail from Mon- 
tana to Salt Lake was begun. The two hundred and 
ninety miles of desert lying between the home of the 
Mormons and Buckskin Mountain was an obstacle 
almost insurmountable. The journey was under- 
taken and found even more trying than had been 
expected. Buffalo after buffalo died on the way. 
Then Frank, Jones’s right-hand man, put Into execu- 
tion a plan he had been thinking of — namely, to 
travel by night. It succeeded. The buffalo rested 
In the day and traveled by easy stages by night, with’ 
the result that the big herd was transported to the 
ideal range. 

Here, in an environment strange to their race, but 
peculiarly adaptable, they thrived and multiplied. 
The hybrid of the Galloway cow and buffalo proved 
a great success. Jones called the new species 
“ Cattalo.” The cattalo took the hardiness of the 
buffalo, and never required artificial food or shelter. 
He would face the desert storm or blizzard and stand 
stock still in his tracks until the weather cleared. He^ 
became quite domestic, could be easily handled, and 
grew exceedingly fat on very little provender. The 
folds of his stomach were so numerous that they 
digested even the hardest and flintiest of corn." 
He had fourteen ribs on each side, while domestic 

34 


The Range 


cattle had only thirteen; thus he could endure 
rougher work and longer journeys to water. His 
fur was so dense and glossy that it equaled that 
of the unplucked beaver or otter, and was fully as 
valuable as the buffalo robe. And not to be over- 
looked by any means was the fact that his meat was 
delicious. 

Jones had to hear every detail of all that had 
happened since his absence in the East, and he was 
particularly inquisitive to learn all about the twenty 
cattalo calves. He called different buffalo by name; 
and designated the calves by descriptive terms, such 
as “ Whiteface ” and “ Crosspatch.” He almost 
forgot to eat, and kept Frank too busy to get any- 
thing into his own mouth. After supper he calmed 
down. 

‘‘ How about your other man — Mr. Wallace, I 
think you said? ” asked Frank. 

“ We expected to meet him at Grand Canon 
Station, and then at Flagstaff. But he didn’t show 
up. Either he backed out or missed us. Pm sorry; 
for when we get up on Buckskin, among the wild 
horses and cougars, we’ll be likely to need him.” 

“ I reckon you’ll need me, as well as Jim,” said 
Frank dryly, with a twinkle in his eye. “ The buffs 
are in good shape an’ can get along without me for 
a while.” 


35 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


“ That’ll be fine. How about cougar sign on the 
mountain? ” 

“ Plenty. IVc got two spotted near Oak Spring. 
Cornin’ over two weeks ago I tracked them in the 
snow along the trail for miles. We’ll ooze over that 
way, as it’s goin’ toward the Siwash. The Siwash 
breaks of the canon — there’s the place for lions. I 
met a wild-horse wrangler not long back, an’ he was 
tellin’ me about Old Tom an’ the colts he’d killed this 
winter.” 

Naturally, I here expressed a desire to know more 
of Old Tom. 

“ He’s the biggest cougar ever known of in these 
parts. His tracks are bigger than a horse’s, an’ have 
been seen on Buckskin for twelve years. This wran- 
gler — his name is Clark — said he’d turned his saddle 
horse out to graze near camp, an’ Old Tom sneaked 
in an’ downed him. The lions over there arc sure a 
bold bunch. Well, why shouldn’t they be? No one 
ever hunted them. You see, th^ mountain is hard to 
get at. But now you’re here, if it’s big cats you want, 
we sure can find them. Only be easy, be easy. , 
You’ve all the time there is. An’ any job on Buck- 
skin will take time. We’ll look the calves over, an’ 
you must ride the range to harden up. Then we’ll 
ooze over toward Oak. I expect it’ll be boggy, an’ 
I hope the snow melts soon.” 

30 


The Range 


“The snow hadn’t melted on Greenland point,” 
replied Jones. “We saw that with a glass from the 
El Tovar. W e wanted to cross that way, but Rust said 
Bright Angel Creek was breast high to a horse, and 
that creek is the trail.” 

“ There’s four feet of snow on Greenland,” said 
Frank. “ It was too early to come that way. There’s 
only about three months in the year the canon can 
be crossed at Greenland.” 

“ I want to get in the snow,” returned Jones. 
“ This bunch of long-eared canines I brought never 
smelled a lion track. Hounds can’t be trained quick 
without snow. You’ve got to see what they’re trail- 
ing, or you can’t break them.” 

Frank looked dubious. “ ’Pears to me we’ll have 
trouble gettin’ a lion without lion dogs. It takes a 
long time to break a hound ofF of deer, once he’s 
chased them. Buckskin is full of deer, wolves, coy- 
otes, and there’s the wild horses. We couldn’t go a 
hundred feet without crossin’ trails.” 

“ How’s the hound you and Jim fetched in last 
year? Has he got a good nose ? Here he is — I like 
his head. Come here. Bowser — what’s his name?” 

“ Jim named him Sounder, because he sure has a 
voice. It’s great to hear him on a trail. Sounder 
has a nose that can’t be fooled, an’ he’ll trail any- 
thin’ ; but I don’t know if he ever got up a lion.” 

37 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


Sounder wagged his bushy tail and looked up affec- 
tionately at Frank. He had a fine head, great brown 
eyes, very long cars and curly brownish-black hair. 
He was not demonstrative, looked rather askance 
at Jones, and avoided the other dogs. 

“ That dog will make a great lion-chaser,” said 
Jones, decisively, after his study of Sounder. “ He 
and Moze will keep us busy, once they learn we want 
lions.” 

“ I don’t believe any dog-trainer could teach them 
short of six months,” replied Frank. “ Sounder is 
no spring chicken; an’ that black and dirty white 
cross between a cayuse an’ a barb-wire fence is an 
old dog. You can’t teach old dogs new tricks.” 

Jones smiled mysteriously, a smile of conscious 
superiority, but said nothing. 

“ We’ll shore hcv a storm to-morrow,” said Jim, 
relinquishing his pipe long enough to speak. He had 
been silent, and now his meditative gaze was on the 
west, through the cabin window, where a dull after- 
glow faded under the heavy laden clouds of night 
and left the horizon dark. 

I was very tired when I lay down, but so full of 
excitement that sleep did not soon visit my eyelids. 
The talk about buffalo, wild-horse hunters, lions and 
dogs, the prospect of hard riding and unusual adven- 
ture; the vision of Old Tom that had already begun 
S8 


The Range 


to haunt me, filled my mind with pictures and fancies. ' 
The other fellows dropped off to sleep, and quiet 
reigned. Suddenly a succession of queer, sharp 
barks came from the plain, close to the cabin. 
Coyotes were paying us a call, and judging from 
the chorus of yelps and howls from our dogs, it was 
not a welcome visit. Above the medley rose one big, 
deep, full voice that I knew at once belonged to 
Sounder. Then all was quiet again. Sleep gradually 
benumbed my senses. Vague phrases dreamily 
drifted to and fro in my mind: “ Jones’s wild range 
— ^Old Tom — Sounder — great name — great voice — 
Sounder I Sounder ! Sound ” 

Next morning I could hardly crawl out of my 
sleeping-bag. My bones ached, my muscles protested 
excruciatingly, my lips burned and bled, and the cold 
I had contracted on the desert clung to me. A good 
brisk walk round the corrals, and then breakfast, 
made me feel better. 

“ Of course you can ride? ” queried Frank. 

My answer was not given from an overwhelming 
desire to be truthful. Frank frowned a little, as if 
wondering how a man could have the nerve to start 
out on a jaunt with Buffalo Jones without being a 
good horseman. To be unable to stick on the back 
of a wild mustang, or a cayuse, was an unpardonable 
sin in Arizona. My frank admission was made rela- 
39 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


tively, with my mind on what cowboys held as a 
standard of horsemanship. 

The mount Frank trotted out of the corral for 
me was a pure white, beautiful mustang, nervous, 
sensitive, quivering. I watched Frank put on the 
saddle, and when he called me I did not fail to 
catch a covert twinkle in his merry brown eyes. 
Looking away toward Buckskin Mountain, which 
was coincidentally in the direction of home, I said to 
myself: “This may be where you get on, but most 
certainly it is where you get off I ” 

Jones was already riding far beyond the corral, 
as I could see by a cloud of dust; and I set off after 
him, with the painful consciousness that I must have 
looked to Frank and Jim much as Central Park 
equestrians had often looked to me. Frank shouted 
after me that he would catch up with us out on the 
range. I was not in any great hurry to overtake 
Jones, but evidently my horse’s inclinations differed 
from mine; at any rate, he made the dust fly, and 
^ jumped the little sage bushes. 

Jones, who had tarried to inspect one of the pools 
— formed of running water from the corrals — 
greeted me as I came up with this cheerful observa- 
tion: 

“ What in thunder did Frank give you that white 
nag for? The buffalo hate white horses — anything 

40 


The Range 

white. They’re liable to stampede off the range, or 
chase you into the canon.” 

I replied grimly that, as it was certain something 
was going to happen, the particular circumstance 
might as well come off quickly. 

We rode over the rolling plain with a cool, brac- 
ing breeze in our faces. The sky was dull and 
mottled with a beautiful cloud effect that presaged 
wind. As we trotted along Jones pointed out to me 
and descanted upon the nutritive value of three dif- 
ferent kinds of grass, one of which he called the 
Buffalo Pea, noteworthy for a beautiful blue blossom. 
Soon we passed out of sight of the cabin, and could 
see only the billowy plain, the red tips of the stony 
wall, and the black-fringed crest of Buckskin. After 
riding a while we made out some cattle, a few of 
which were on the range, browsing in the lee of a 
ridge. No sooner had I marked them than Jones 
let out another Comanche yell. 

“ Wolf I ” he yelled; and spurring his big bay, he 
was off like the wind. 

A single glance showed me several cows running 
as if bewildered, and near them a big white wolf 
pulling down a calf. Another white wolf stood not 
far off. My horse jumped as if he had been shot; 
and the realization darted upon me that here was 
where the certain something began. Spot — the mus- 
41 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

tang had one black spot in his pure white — snorted 
like I imagined a blooded horse might, under dire 
insult. Jones’s bay had gotten about a hundred paces 
the start. I lived to learn that Spot hated to be left 
behind; moreover, he would not be left behind; he 
was the swiftest horse on the range, and proud of 
the distinction. I cast one unmentionable word on 
the breeze toward the cabin and Frank, then put 
mind and muscle to the sore task of remaining with 
Spot. Jones was born on a saddle, and had been 
taking his meals in a saddle for about sixty-three 
years, and the bay horse could run. Run is not a 
felicitous word — he flew. And I was rendered men- 
tally deranged for the moment to see that hundred 
paces between the bay and Spot materially lessen at 
every jump. Spot lengthened out, seemed to go 
down near the ground, and cut the air like a high- 
geared auto. If I had not heard the fast rhythmic 
beat of his hoofs, and had not bounced high into the 
air at every jump, I would have been sure I was rid- 
ing a bird. I tried to stop him. As well might I 
have tried to pull in the Lusitania with a thread. 
Spot was out to overhaul that bay, and in spite of 
me, he was doing it. The wind rushed into my face 
and sang in my ears. Jones seemed the nucleus of a 
sort of haze, and he grew larger and larger. Pres- 
ently he became clearly defined in my sight; the 
42 


The Range 

violent commotion under me subsided; I once more 
felt the saddle, and then I realized that Spot had 
been content to stop alongside of Jones, tossing his 
head and champing his bit. 

“Well, by George! I didn’t know you were in 
the stretch,” cried my companion. “ That was a line 
little brush. We must have come several miles. I’d 
have killed those wolves if I’d brought a gun. The 
big one that had the calf was a bold brute. He 
never let go until I was within fifty feet of him. 
Then I almost rode him down. I don’t think the 
calf was much hurt. But those blood-thirsty devils 
will return, and like as not get the calf. That’s 
the worst of cattle raising. Now, take the buffalo. 
Do you suppose those wolves could have gotten a 
buffalo calf out from under the mother? Never. 
Neither could a whole band of wolves. Buffalo stick 
close together, and the little ones do not stray. When 
danger threatens, the herd closes in and faces it and 
fights. That is what is grand about the buffalo and 
what made them once roam the prairies in countless, 
endless droves.” 

From the highest elevation in that part of the 
range we viewed the surrounding ridges, flats and 
hollows, searching for the buffalo. At length we 
spied a cloud of dust rising from behind an undulat- 
ing mound, then big black dots hove in sight. 

43 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

“ Frank has rounded up the herd, and is driving it 
this way. We’ll wait,” said Jones. 

Though the buffalo appeared to be moving fast, 
a long time elapsed before they reached the foot of 
our outlook. They lumbered along in a compact 
mass, so dense that I could not count them, but I 
estimated the number at seventy-five. Frank was 
riding zigzag behind them, swinging his lariat and 
yelling. When he espied us he reined in his horse 
and waited. Then the herd slowed down, halted 
and began browsing. 

“ Look at the cattalo calves,” cried Jones, in 
ecstatic tones. “ See how shy they are, how close 
they stick to their mothers.” 

The little dark-brown fellows were plainly fright- 
ened. I made several unsuccessful attempts to photo- 
graph them, and gave it up when Jones told me not 
to ride too close and that it would be better to wait 
till we had them in the corral. 

He took my camera and instructed me to go on 
ahead, in the rear of the herd. I heard the click 
of the instrument as he snapped a picture, and then 
suddenly heard him shout in alarm: “Look out I 
look out ! pull your horse ! ” 

Thundering hoof-beats pounding the earth accom- 
panied his words. I saw a big bull, with head down, 
tail raised, charging my horse. He answered Frank’s 
44 


The Range 


yell of command with a furious grunt. I was para- 
lyzed at the wonderfully swift action of the shaggy 
brute, and I sat helpless. Spot wheeled as If he were 
on a pivot and plunged out of the way with a 
celerity that was astounding. The buffalo stopped, 
pawed the ground, and angrily tossed his huge head. 
Frank rode up to him, yelled, and struck him with 
the lariat, whereupon he gave another toss of his 
horns, and then returned to the herd. 

“ It was that darned white nag,” said Jones. 
“ Frank, It was wrong to put an Inexperienced man 
on Spot. For that matter, the horse should never 
be allowed to go near the buffalo.” 

“ Spot knows the buffs ; they’d never get to him,” 
replied Frank. But the usual spirit was absent from 
his voice, and he glanced at me soberly. I knew I 
had turned white, for I felt the peculiar cold sensa- 
tion In my face. 

“ Now, look at that, will you? ” cried Jones. “ I 
don’t like the looks of that.” 

He pointed to the herd. They stopped browsing, 
and were uneasily shifting to and fro. The bull 
lifted his head; the others slowly grouped together. 

“ Storm ! Sandstorm ! ” exclaimed Jones, pointing 
desert-ward. Dark yellow clouds like smoke were 
rolling, sweeping, bearing down upon us. They 
expanded, blossoming out like gigantic roses, and 
45 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

whirled and merged into one another, all the time 
rolling on and blotting out the light. 

“ WeVe got to run. That storm may last two 
days,” yelled Frank to me. “ We’ve had some bad 
ones lately. Give your horse free rein, and cover 
your face.” 

A roar, resembling an approaching storm at sea, 
came on puffs of wind, as the horses got into their 
stride. Long streaks of dust whipped up in different 
places; the silver-white grass bent to the ground; 
round bunches of sage went rolling before us. The 
puffs grew longer, steadier, harder. Then a shriek- 
ing blast howled on our trail, seeming to swoop 
down on us with a yellow, blinding pall. I shut 
my eyes and covered my face with a handkerchief. 
The sand blew so thick that it filled my gloves, peb- 
bles struck me hard enough to sting through my 
coat. 

Fortunately, Spot kept to an easy swinging lope, 
which was the most comfortable motion for me. But 
I began to get numb, and could hardly stick on the 
saddle. Almost before I had dared to hope. Spot 
stopped. Uncovering my face, I saw Jim in the 
doorway of the lee side of the cabin. The yellow, 
streaky, whistling clouds of sand split on the cabin 
and passed on, leaving a small, dusty space of light. 

Shore Spot do hate to be beat,” yelled Jim, as he 

46 


The Range 

helped me off. I stumbled into the cabin and fell 
upon a buffalo robe and lay there absolutely spent. 
Jones and Frank came in a few minutes apart, each 
anathematizing the gritty, powdery sand. 

All day the desert storm raged and roared. The 
dust sifted through the numerous cracks in the cabin, 
burdened our clothes, spoiled our food and blinded 
our eyes. Wind, snow, sleet and rainstorms are 
discomforting enough under trying circumstances; 
but all combined, they are nothing to the choking, 
stinging, blinding sandstorm. 

“ Shore it’ll let up by sundown,” averred Jim. 
And sure enough the roar died away about five 
o’clock, the wind abated and the sand settled. 

Just before supper, a knock sounded heavily on 
the cabin door. Jim opened it to admit one of 
Emmett’s sons and a very tall man whom none of us 
knew. He was a sand-man. All that was not sand 
seemed a space or two of corduroy, a big bone- 
handled knife, a prominent square jaw and bronzed 
cheek and flashing eyes. 

“ Get down — get down, an’ come in, stranger,” 
said Frank cordially. 

“ How do you do, sir,” said Jones. 

“ Colonel Jones, I’ve been on your trail for twelve 
days,” announced the stranger, with a grim smile. 
The sand streamed off his coat in little white streaks. 

47 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

Jones appeared to be casting about in his mind. 

“ I’m Grant Wallace,” continued the newcomer. 
“ I missed you at the El Tovar, at Williams and at 
Flagstaff, where I was one day behind. Was half a 
day late at the Little Colorado, saw your train cross 
Moncaupie Wash, and missed you because of the 
sandstorm there. Saw you from the other side of 
the Big Colorado as you rode out from Emmett’s 
along the red wall. And here I am. We’ve never 
met till now, which obviously isn’t my fault.” 

The Colonel and I fell upon Wallace’s neck. 
Frank manifested his usual alert excitation, and said: 
“ Well, I guess he won’t hang fire on a long cougar 
chase.” And Jim — slow, careful Jim, dropped a 
plate with the exclamation: “ Shore it do beat hell! ” 
The hounds sniffed round Wallace, and welcomed 
him with vigorous tails. 

Supper that night, even if we did grind sand with 
our teeth, was a joyous occasion. The biscuits were 
flaky and light; the bacon fragrant and crisp. I 
produced a jar of blackberry jam, which by subtle 
cunning I had been able to secrete from the Mormons 
on that dry desert ride, and it was greeted with 
acclamations of pleasure. Wallace, divested of his 
sand guise, beamed with the gratification of a hungry 
man once more in the presence of friends and food. 
He made large cavities in Jim’s great pot of potato 
48 


The Range 

stew, and caused biscuits to vanish in a way that 
would not have shamed a Hindoo magician. The 
grand canon he dug in my jar of jam, however, could 
not have been accomplished by legerdemain. 

Talk became animated on dogs, cougars, horses 
and buffalo. Jones told of our experience out on 
the range, and concluded with some salient remarks. 

“ A tame wild animal is the most dangerous of 
beasts. My old friend, Dick Rock, a great hunter and 
guide out of Idaho, laughed at my advice, and got 
killed by one of his three-year-old bulls. I told him 
they knew him just well enough to kill him, and 
they did. My friend, A. H. Cole, of Oxford, 
Nebraska, tried to rope a Weetah that was too tame 
to be safe, and the bull killed him. Same with 
General Bull, a member of the Kansas Legislature, 
and two cowboys who went into a corral to tie up a 
tame elk at the wrong time. I pleaded with them 
not to undertake it. They had not studied animals 
as I had. That tame elk killed all of them. He 
had to be shot in order to get General Bull off his 
I great antlers. You see, a wild animal must learn to 
respect a man. The way I used to teach the Yellow- 
stone Park bears to be respectful and safe neighbors 
was to rope them around the front paw, swing them 
up on a tree clear of the ground, and whip them 
with a long pole. It was a dangerous business, and 
49 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

looks cruel, but it is the only way I could find to make 
the bears good. .You see, they eat scraps around the 
hotels and get so tame they will steal everything but 
red-hot stoves, and will cuff the life out of those who 
try to shoo them off. But after a bear mother has 
had a licking, she not only becomes a good bear for 
the rest of her life, but she tells all her cubs about 
it with a good smack of her paw, for emphasis, and 
teaches them to respect peaceable citizens genera- 
tion after generation. 

“ One of the hardest jobs I ever tackled was that 
of supplying the buffalo for Bronx Park. I rounded up 
a magnificent ‘ king ’ buffalo bull, belligerent enough 
to fight a battleship. When I rode after him the 
cowmen said I was as good as killed. I made a lance 
by driving a nail into the end of a short pole and 
sharpening it. After he had chased me, I wheeled 
my broncho, and hurled the lance into his back, rip- 
ping a wound as long as my hand. That put the 
fear of Providence Into him and took the fight all 
out of him. I drove him uphill and down, and across 
canons at a dead run for eight miles single-handed, 
and loaded him on a freight car; but he came near 
getting me once or twice, and only quick broncho 
work and lance play saved me. 

‘‘ In the Yellowstone Park all our buffaloes have 
become docile, excepting the huge bull which led 
50 


The Range 


them. The Indians call the buffalo leader the ‘ Wee- 
tah,’ the master of the herd. It was sure death to 
go near this one. So I shipped in another Weetah, 
hoping that he might whip some of the fight out of 
old Manitou, the Mighty. They came together head 
on, like a railway collision, and ripped up over a 
square mile of landscape, fighting till night came on, 
and then on into the night. 

“ I jumped into the field with them, chasing them 
with my biograph, getting a series of moving pictures 
of that bullfight which was sure the real thing. It 
was a ticklish thing to do, though knowing that 
neither bull dared take his eyes off his adversary for 
a second, I felt reasonably safe. The old Weetah 
beat the new champion out that night, but the next 
morning they were at it again, and the new buffalo 
finally whipped the old one into submission. Since 
then his spirit has remained broken, and even a child 
can approach him safely — but the new Weetah is in 
turn a holy terror. 

“ To handle buffalo, elk and bear, you must get 
into sympathy with their methods of reasoning. No 
tenderfoot stands any show, even with the tame 
animals of the Yellowstone.” 

The old buffalo hunter’s lips were no longer 
locked. One after another he told reminiscences of 
his eventful life, in a simple manner; yet so vivid and 
51 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


gripping were the unvarnished details that I was 
spellbound. 

“ Considering what appears the impossibility of 
capturing a full-grown buffalo, how did you earn 
the name of preserver of the American bison?’’ 
inquired Wallace. 

“ It took years to learn how, and ten more to cap- 
ture the fifty-eight that I was able to keep. I tried 
every plan under the sun. I roped hundreds, of all 
sizes and ages. They would not live in captivity. 
If they could not find an embankment over which 
to break their necks, they would crush their skulls 
on stones. Failing any means like that, they would 
lie down, will themselves to die, and die. Think of 
a savage wild nature that could will its heart to 
cease beating! But it’s true. Finally I found I 
could keep only calves under three months of age. 
But to capture them so young entailed time and 
patience. For the buffalo fight for their young, and 
when I say fight, I mean till they drop. I almost 
always had to go alone, because I could neither coax 
nor hire any one to undertake it with me. Some- 
times I would be weeks getting one calf. One day I 
captured eight — eight little buffalo calves! Never 
will I forget that day as long as I live ! ” 

“ Tell us about it,” I suggested, in a matter of fact, 
round-the-campfire voice. Had the silent plainsman: 

52 


The Range 

ever told a complete and full story of his adventures? 
I doubted it. He was not the man to eulogize him- 
self. 

A short silence ensued. The cabin was snug and 
warm; the ruddy embers glowed; one of Jim’s pots' 
steamed musically and fragrantly. The hounds lay 
curled in the cozy chimney corner. 

Jones began to talk again, simply and unaffectedly, 
of his famous exploit; and as he went on so modestly, 
passing lightly over features we recognized as won- 
derful, I allowed the fire of my imagination to fuse 
for myself all the toil, patience, endurance, skill, 
herculean strength and marvelous courage and 
unfathomable passion which he slighted in his narra- 
tive. 


CHAPTER III 


THE LAST HERD 

O VER gray No-Man’ s-Land stole down the 
shadows of night. The undulating prairie 
shaded dark to the western horizon, rimmed 
with a fading streak of light. Tall figures, silhou- 
etted sharply against the last golden glow of sunset, 
marked the rounded crest of a grassy knoll. 

“Wild hunter!” cried a voice in sullen rage, 
“ buffalo or no, we halt here. Did Adams and I 
hire to cross the Staked Plains? Two weeks in No- 
Man’s-Land, and now we’re facing the sand I We’ve 
one keg of water, yet you want to keep on. Why, 
man, you’re crazy! You didn’t tell us you wanted 
buffalo alive. And here you’ve got us looking death 
In the eye ! ” 

In the grim silence that ensued the two men 
unhitched the team from the long, light wagon, while 
the buffalo hunter staked out his wiry, lithe-limbed 
racehorses. Soon a fluttering blaze threw a circle 
of light, which shone on the agitated face of Rude 
and Adams, and the cold, iron-set visage of their 
brawny leader. 

“ It’s this way,” began Jones, in slow, cool voice; 
64 


The Last Herd 


“ I engaged you fellows, and you promised to stlcK 
by me. We’ve had no luck. But I’ve finally found 
sign — old sign, I’ll admit — of the buffalo I’m look- 
ing for — the last herd on the plains. For two years 
I’ve been hunting this herd. So have other hunters. ; 
Millions of buffalo have been killed and left to rot.: 
Soon this herd will be gone, and then the only 
buffalo in the world will be those I have given ten. 
years of the hardest work in capturing. This is the 
last herd, I say, and my last chance to capture a calf 
or two. Do you imagine I’d quit? You fellows ga 
back if you want, but I keep on.” 

“We can’t go back. We’re lost. We’ll have 
to go with you. But, man, thirst is not the only risk 
we run. This is Comanche country. And if that 
herd is in here the Indians have it spotted.” 

“ That worries me some,” replied the plainsman, 

“ but we’ll keep on.” 

They slept. The night wind swished the grasses; 
dark storm clouds blotted out the northern stars ; the 
prairie wolves mourned dismally. 

Day broke cold, wan, threatening, under a leaden 
sky. The hunters traveled thirty miles by noon, and 
halted in a hollow where a stream flowed in wet 
season. Cottonwood trees were bursting into green; 
thickets of prickly thorn, dense and matted, showed 
bright spring buds. 


55 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


“ What is it? ” suddenly whispered Rude. 

The plainsman lay in strained posture, his ear 
against the ground. 

“ Hide the wagon and horses in the clump of cot- 
tonwoods,” he ordered, tersely. Springing to his 
feet, he ran to the top of the knoll above the hollow, 
where he again placed his ear to the ground. 

Jones’s practiced ear had detected the quavering 
rumble of far-away, thundering hoofs. He searched 
the wide waste of plain with his powerful glass. To 
the southwest, miles distant, a cloud of dust mush- 
roomed skyward. “ Not buffalo,” he muttered, 
“ maybe wild horses.” He watched and waited. 
The yellow cloud rolled forward, enlarging, spread- 
ing out, and drove before it a darkly indistinct, mov- 
ing mass. As soon as he had one good look at this 
he ran back to his comrades. 

“Stampede! Wild horses! Indians! Look to 
your rifles and hide ! ” 

Wordless and pale, the men examined their Sharps, 
and made ready to follow Jones. He slipped into 
the thorny brake and, flat on his stomach, wormed 
his way like a snake far into the thickly interlaced 
web of branches. Rude and Adams crawled after 
him. Words were superfluous. Quiet, breathless, 
with beating hearts, the hunters pressed close to the 
'dry grass. A long, low, steady rumble filled the air, 
56 


The Last Herd 


and increased in volume till it became a roar. 
Moments, endless moments, passed. The roar filled 
out like a flood slowly released from its confines to 
sweep down with the sound of doom. The ground 
began to tremble and quake; the light faded; the 
smell of dust pervaded the thicket, then a continuous 
streaming roar, deafening as persistent roll of thun- 
der, pervaded the hiding place. The stampeding 
horses had split round the hollow. The roar less- 
ened. Swiftly as a departing snow-squall rushing on 
through the pines, the thunderous thud and tramp 
of hoofs died away. 

The trained horses hidden in the cottonwoods 
never stirred. “Lie low! lie low!” breathed the 
plainsman to his companions. 

Throb of hoofs again became audible, not loud 
and madly pounding as those that had passed, but 
low, muffled, rhythmic. Jones’s sharp eye, through 
a peephole in the thicket, saw a cream-colored mus- 
tang bob over the knoll, carrying an Indian. Another 
and another, then a swiftly following, close-packed 
throng appeared. Bright red feathers and white 
gleamed; weapons glinted; gaunt, bronzed savages 
leaned forward on racy, slender mustangs. 

The plainsman shrank closer to the ground. 
“ Apache ! ” he exclaimed to himself, and gripped 
his rifle. The band galloped down to the hollow, and 
57 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


slowing up, piled single file over the bank. The 
leader, a short, squat chief, plunged into the brake 
not twenty yards from the hidden men. Jones recog- 
nized the cream mustang; he knew the somber, sinis- 
ter, broad face. It belonged to the Red Chief of 
the Apaches. 

Geronimo ! ” murmured the plainsman through 
his teeth. 

Well for the Apache that no falcon savage eye 
discovered aught strange in the little hollow! One 
look at the sand of the stream bed would have cost 
him his life. But the Indians crossed the thicket too 
[far up ; they cantered up the slope and disappeared. 
[The hoof-beats softened and ceased. 

“Gone?” whispered Rude. 

“ Gone. But wait,” whispered Jones. He knew 
the savage nature, and he knew how to wait. After 
a long time, he cautiously crawled out of the thicket 
and searched the surroundings with a plainsman’s 
eye. He climbed the slope and saw the clouds of 
dust, the near one small, the far one large, which 
told him all he needed to know. 

“ Comanches? ” queried Adams, with a quaver in 
his voice. He was new to the plains. 

“ Likely,” said Jones, who thought it best not to 
tell all he knew. Then he added to himself : “ We’ve 
no time to lose. There’s water back here somewhere. 

68 


The Last Herd 


The Indians have spotted the buffalo, and were run- 
ning the horses away from the water,” 

The three got under way again, proceeding care- 
fully, so as not to raise the dust, and headed due 
southwest. Scantier and scantier grew the grass ; the 
hollows were washes of sand ; steely gray dunes, like 
long, flat, ocean swells, ribbed the prairie. The 
gray day declined. Late into the purple night they 
traveled, then camped without fire. 

In the gray morning Jones climbed a high ride 
and scanned the southwest. Low dun-colored sand- 
hills waved from him down and down, in slow, decep- 
tive descent. A solitary and remote waste reached 
out into gray infinitude. A pale lake, gray as the 
rest of that gray expanse, glimmered in the distance. 

“ Mirage ! ” he muttered, focusing his glass, which 
only magnified all under the dead gray, steely sky. 
“Water must be somewhere; but can that be it? 
It^s too pale and elusive to be real. No life — - 
a blasted, staked plain ! Hello ! ” 

A thin, black, wavering line of wild fowl, moving 
in beautiful, rapid flight, crossed the line of his 
vision. “ Geese flying north, and low. There’s 
water here,” he said. He followed the flock with his 
glass, saw them circle over the lake, and vanish in the 
gray sheen. 

“ It’s water.” He hurried back to camp. His 
59 


( 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


haggard and worn companions scorned his discovery. 
Adams siding with Rude, who knew the plains, said : 
“ Mirage I the lure of the desert! ’’ Yet dominated 
by a force too powerful for them to resist, they fol- 
lowed the buffalo-hunter. All day the gleaming lake 
beckoned them onward, and seemed to recede. All 
day the drab clouds scudded before the cold north 
wind. In the gray twilight, the lake suddenly lay 
before them, as if it had opened at their feet. The 
men rejoiced, the horses lifted their noses and sniffed 
the damp air. 

The whinnies of the horses, the clank of harness, 
and splash of water, the whirr of ducks did not blur 
out of Jones’s keen ear a sound that made him jump. 
It was the thump of hoofs, in a familiar beat, beat, 
beat. He saw a shadow moving up a ridge. Soon, 
outlined black against the yet light sky, a lone buffalo 
cow stood like a statue. A moment she held toward 
the lake, studying the danger, then went out of sight 
over the ridge. 

Jones spurred his horse up the ascent, which was 
rather long and steep, but he mounted the summit in 
time to see the cow join eight huge, shaggy buffalo. 
The hunter reined in his horse, and standing high in 
his stirrups, held his hat at arms’ length over his 
head. So he thrilled to a moment he had sought for 
two years. The last herd of American bison was 
60 


The Last Herd 


near at hand. The cow would not venture far from 
the main herd; the eight stragglers were the old 
broken-down bulls that had been expelled, at this 
season, from the herd by younger and more vigorous 
) bulls. The old monarchs saw the hunter at the same 
time his eyes were gladdened by sight of them, and 
lumbered away after the cow, to disappear in the 
gathering darkness. Frightened buffalo always make 
straight for their fellows; and this knowledge con- 
tented Jones to return to the lake, well satisfied that 
the herd would not be far away In the morning, 
within easy striking distance by daylight. 

At dark the storm which had threatened for days, 
broke in a fury of rain, sleet and hail. The hunters 
stretched a piece of canvas over the wheels of the 
north side of the wagon, and wet and shivering, 
crawled under it to their blankets. During the night 
the storm raged with unabated strength. 

Dawn, forbidding and raw, lightened to the whis- 
tle of the sleety gusts. Fire was out of the question. 
. Chary of weight, the hunters had carried no wood, 
|and the buffalo chips they used for fuel were lumps 
of ice. Grumbling, Adams and Rude ate a cold 
breakfast, while Jones, munching a biscuit, faced the 
biting blast from the crest of the ridge. The middle 
of the plain below held a ragged, circular mass, as 
still as stone. It was the buffalo herd, with every 
61 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


shaggy head to the storm. So they would stand, 
never budging from their tracks, till the blizzard 
of sleet was over. 

Jones, though eager and impatient, restrained him- 
self, for it was unwise to begin operations in the 
storm. There was nothing to do but wait. Ill fared 
the hunters that day. Food had to be eaten uncooked. 
The long hours dragged by with the little group 
huddled under icy blankets. When darkness fell, 
the sleet changed to drizzling rain. This blew over 
at midnight, and a colder wind, penetrating to the 
very marrow of the sleepless men, made their condi- 
tion worse. In the after part of the night, the wolves 
howled mournfully. 

With a gray, misty light appearing in the east, 
Jones threw olf his stiff, icc-incascd blanket, and 
crawled out. A gaunt gray wolf, the color of the 
day and the sand and the lake, sneaked away, looking 
back. While moving and threshing about to warm 
his frozen blood, Jones munched another biscuit. 
His men crawled from under the wagon, and made 
an unfruitful search for the whisky. Fearing it, | 
Jones had thrown the bottle away. The men cursed. 
The patient horses drooped sadly, and shivered in the 
lee of the improvised tent. Jones kicked the inch- 
thick casing of ice from his saddle. Kentuck, his 
racer, had been spared on the whole trip for this 
62 


The Last Herd 


day’s work. The thoroughbred was cold, but as 
Jones threw the saddle over him, he showed that 
he knew the chase ahead, and was eager to be off. 
i At last, after repeated efforts with his benumbed 
I fingers, Jones got the girths tight. He tied a bunch 
of soft cords to the saddle and mounted. 

“ Follow as fast as you can,” he called to his 
surly men. “ The buffs will run north against the 
wind. This is the right direction for us; we’ll soon 
leave the sand. Stick to my trail and come a-hum- 
ming.” 

From the ridge he met the red sun, rising bright, 
and a keen northeasterly wind that lashed like a whip. 
As he had anticipated, his quarry had moved north- 
ward. Kentuck let out into a swinging stride, which 
in an hour had the loping herd in sight. Every jump 
now took him upon higher ground, where the sand 
failed, and the grass grew thicker and began to 
bend under the wind. 

In the teeth of the nipping gale Jones slipped close 
upon the herd without alarming even a cow. More 
f than a hundred little reddish-blade calves leisurely 
loped in the rear. Kentuck, keen to his work, crept 
on like a wolf, and the hunter’s great fist clenched 
the coiled lasso. Before him expanded a boundless 
plain. A situation long cherished and dreamed of 
had become a reality. Kentuck, fresh and strong, 
63 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

was good for all day. Jones gloated over the little 
red bulls and heifers, as a miser gloats over gold 
and jewels. Never before had he caught more than 
two in one day, and often it had taken days to cap- 
ture one. This was the last herd, this the last oppor- 
tunity toward perpetuating a grand race of beasts. 
And with born instinct he saw ahead the day of his 
life. 

At a touch, Kentuck closed in, and the buffalo, 
seeing him, stampeded into the heaving roll so well 
known to the hunter. Racing on the right flank of 
the herd, Jones selected a tawny heifer and shot 
the lariat after her. It fell true, but being stiff and 
kinky from the sleet, failed to tighten, and the quick* 
calf leaped through the loop to freedom. 

Undismayed the pursuer quickly recovered his 
rope. Again he whirled and sent the loop. Again 
it circled true, and failed to close; again the agile 
heifer bounded through it. Jones whipped the air 
with the stubborn rope. To lose a chance like that 
was worse than boy’s work. 

The third whirl, running a smaller loop, tightened 
the coil round the frightened calf just back of its ears. 
A pull on the bridle brought Kentuck to a halt in 
his tracks, and the baby buffalo rolled over and over 
in the grass. Jones bounced from his seat and 
jerked loose a couple of the soft cords. In a twinkling 
64 


The Last Herd 


his big knee crushed down on the calf, and his big 
hands bound it helpless. 

Kentuck neighed. Jones saw his black cars go 
1 up. Danger threatened. For a moment the hunter’s 
' blood turned chill, not from fear, for he never felt 
fear, but because he thought the Indians were return- 
ing to ruin his work. His eye swept the plain. Only 
the gray forms of wolves flitted through the grass, 
here, there, all about him. Wolves! They were 
as fatal to his enterprise as savages. A trooping pack 
of prairie wolves had fallen in with the herd and 
hung close on the trail, trying to cut a calf away from 
its mother. The gray brutes boldly trotted to within a 
few yards of him, and slyly looked at him, with pale, 
fiery eyes. They had already scented his captive. 
Precious time flew by; the situation, critical and 
baffling, had never before been met by him. There 
lay his little calf tied fast, and to the north ran many 
others, some of which he must — he would have. To 
think quickly had meant the solving of many a plains- 
man’s problem. Should he stay with his prize to 
^ save it, or leave it to be devoured? 

“ Ha I you old gray devils ! ” he yelled, shaking 
his fist at the wolves. “ I know a trick or two.” 
Slipping his hat between the legs of the calf, he fast- 
ened it securely. This done, he vaulted on Kentuck, 
and was off with never a backward glance. CertaLp 
65 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

it was that the wolves would not touch anything, 
alive or dead, that bore the scent of a human being. 

The bison scoured away a long half-mile in the 
lead, sailing northward like a cloud-shadow over the 
plain. Kentuck, mettlesome, over-eager, would have 
run himself out in short order, but the wary hunter^^ 
strong to restrain as well as impel, with the long 
day in his mind, kept the steed in his easy stride, 
which, springy and stretching, overhauled the herd 
in the course of several miles. 

A dash, a whirl, a shock, a leap, horse and hunter 
working in perfect accord, and a fine big calf, bellow- 
ing lustily, struggled desperately for freedom under 
the remorseless knee. The big hands toyed with 
him ; and then, secure in the double knots, the calf lay 
still, sticking out his tongue and rolling his eyes, 
with the coat of the hunter tucked under his bonds to 
keep away the wolves. 

The race had but begun; the horse had but 
warmed to his work; the hunter had but tasted of 
sweet triumph. Another hopeful of a buffalo mother, 
negligent in danger, truant from his brothers, stum- 
bled and fell in the enmeshing loop. The hunter’s' 
vest, slipped over the calf’s neck, served as danger 
signal to the wolves. Before the lumbering buffalo 
missed their loss, another red and black baby kicked 
helplessly on the grass and sent up vain, weak calls, 
66 


The Last Herd 


and at last lay still, with the hunter’s boot tied to his 
cords. 

Four ! Jones counted them aloud, and in his mind, 
and kept on ! Fast, hard work, covering upward of 
fifteen miles, had begun to tell on herd, horse and 
man, and all slowed down to the call for strength. 
The fifth time Jones closed in on his game, he encoun- 
tered different circumstances such as called forth his 
cunning. 

The herd had opened up ; the mothers had fallen 
back to the rear ; the calves hung almost out of sight 
under the shaggy sides of protectors. To try them 
out Jones darted close and threw his lasso. It struck 
a cow. With activity incredible in such a huge beast, 
she lunged at him. Kentuck, expecting just such a 
move, wheeled to safety. This duel, ineffectual on 
both sides, kept up for a while, and all the time, 
man and herd were jogging rapidly to the north. 

Jones could not let well enough alone; he acknowl- 
edged this even as he swore he must have five. 
Emboldened by his marvelous luck, and yielding 
headlong to the passion within, he threw caution to 
the winds. A lame old cow with a red calf caught 
his eye; in he spurred his willing horse and slung 
his rope. It stung the haunch of the mother. The 
mad grunt she vented was no quicker than the velocity 
with which she plunged and reared. Jones had but 
67 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

time to swing his leg over the saddle when the hoofs 
beat down. Kentuck rolled on the plain, flinging his 
rider from him. The infuriated buffalo lowered her 
head for the fatal charge on the horse, when the 
plainsman, jerking out his heavy Colts, shot her dead 
in her tracks. 

Kentuck got to his feet unhurt, and stood his 
ground, quivering but ready, showing his steadfast 
courage. He showed more, for his ears lay back, 
and his eyes had the gleam of the animal that strikes 
back. 

The calf ran round its mother. Jones lassoed it, 
and tied it down, being compelled to cut a piece from 
his lasso, as the cords on the saddle had given out. 
He left his other boot with baby number five. The 
still heaving, smoking body of the victim called forth 
the stern, intrepid hunter’s pity for a moment. Spill 
of blood he had not wanted. But he had not been 
able to avoid it; and mounting again with close-shut 
jaw and smoldering eye, he galloped to the north. 

Kentuck snorted; the pursuing wolves shied off in 
the grass ; the pale sun began to slant westward. The 
cold iron stirrups froze and cut the hunter’s bootless 
feet. 

When once more he came hounding the buffalo, 
they were considerably winded. Short-tufted tails, 
raised stiffly, gave warning. Snorts, like puffs of 
68 


The Last Herd 


escaping steam, and deep grunts from cavernous 
chests evinced anger and impatience that might, at 
any moment, bring the herd to a defiant stand. 

He whizzed the shortened noose over the head of 
a calf that was laboring painfully to keep up, and^ 
had slipped down, when a mighty grunt told him of 
peril. Never looking to see whence it came, he 
sprang into the saddle. Fiery Kentuck jumped into 
action, then hauled up with a shock that almost 
threw himself and rider. The lasso, fast to the 
horse, and its loop end round the calf, had caused the 
sudden check. 

A maddened cow bore down on Kentuck. The 
gallant horse straightened in a jump, but dragging 
the calf pulled him in a circle, and in another moment 
he was running round and round the howling, kicking 
pivot. Then ensued a terrible race, with horse and 
bison describing a twenty-foot circle. Bang 1 Bang ! 
The hunter fired two shots, and heard the spats of 
the bullets. But they only augmented the frenzy of 
the beast. Faster Kentuck flew, snorting in terror : 
closer drew the dusty, bouncing pursuer; the calf 
spun like a top; the lasso strung tighter than wire. 
Jones strained to loosen the fastening, but in vain. 
He swore at his carelessness In dropping his knife 
by the last calf he had tied. He thought of shooting 
the rope, yet dared not risk the shot. A hollow 

69 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

sound turned him again, with the Colts leveled. 
Bang ! Dust flew from the ground beyond the bison. 

The two charges left in the gun were all that 
stood between him and eternity. With a desperate 
display of strength Jones threw his weight in a back- 
ward pull, and hauled Kentuck up. Then he leaned 
far back in the saddle, and shoved the Colts out 
beyond the horse’s flank. Down went the broad 
head, with its black, glistening horns. Bang I She 
slid forward with a crash, plowing the ground with 
hoofs and nose — spouted blood, uttered a hoarse cry, 
kicked and died. 

Kentuck, for once completely terrorized, reared 
and plunged from the cow, dragging the calf. Stern 
command and iron arm forced him to a standstill. 
The calf, nearly strangled, recovered when the noose 
was slipped, and moaned a feeble protest against life 
and captivity. The remainder of Jones’s lasso went 
to bind number six, and one of his socks went to 
serve as reminder to the persistent wolves. 

“Six I On! On! Kentuck! On!” Weaken- 
ing, but unconscious of it, with bloody hands and 
feet, without lasso, and with only one charge in his 
revolver, hatless, coatless, vestless, bootless, the wild 
hunter urged on the noble horse. The herd had 
gained miles in the interval of the flght. Game to 
the backbone, Kentuck lengthened out to overhaul 
70 


The Last Herd 


it, and slowly the rolling gap lessened and lessened. 
A long hour thumped away, with the rumble growing 
nearer. 

Once again the lagging calves dotted the grassy 
plain before the hunter. He dashed beside a burly 
calf, grasped its tail, stopped his horse, and jumped. 
The calf went down with him, and did not come 
up. The knotted, blood-stained hands, like claws 
of steel, bound the hind legs close and fast with a 
leathern belt, and left between them a torn and 
bloody sock. 

“Seven! On! Old Faithful! We must have 
another ! the last ! This is your day.” 

The blood that flecked the hunter was not all his 
own. 

The sun slanted westwardly toward the purpling 
horizon; the grassy plain gleamed like a ruffled sea 
of glass; the gray wolves loped on. 

When next the hunter came within sight of the 
herd, over a wavy ridge, changes in its shape and 
movement met his gaze. The calves were almost 
done; they could run no more; their mothers faced 
the south, and trotted slowly to and fro; the bulls 
were grunting, herding, piling close. It looked as 
if the herd meant to stand and fight. - ^ 

This mattered little to the hunter who had captured 
seven calves since dawn. The first limping calf he 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


reached tried to elude the grasping hand and failed. 
Kentuck had been trained to wheel to the right or 
left, in whichever way his rider leaned; and as Jones 
bent over and caught an upraised tail, the horse 
turned to strike the calf with both front hoofs. The 
calf rolled; the horse plunged down; the rider sped 
beyond to the dust. Though the calf was tired, he 
still could bellow, and he filled the air with robust 
bawls. 

Jones all at once saw twenty or more buffalo dash 
, in at him with fast, twinkling, short legs. With the 
thought of it, he was in the air to the saddle. As the 
black, round mounds charged from every direction, 
Kentuck let out with all there was left in him. He 
leaped and whirled, pitched and swerved, in a roar- 
ing, clashing, dusty melee. Beating hoofs threw the 
turf, flying tails whipped the air, and everywhere 
were dusky, sharp-pointed heads, tossing low. Ken- 
tuck squeezed out unscathed. The mob of bison, 
bristling, turned to lumber after the main herd. 
I Jones seized his opportunity and rode after them, 
yelling with all his might. He drove them so hard 
that soon the little fellows lagged paces behind. Only 
one or two old cows straggled with the calves. 

Then wheeling Kentuck, he cut between the herd 
and a calf, and rode it down. Bewildered, the 
tously little bull bellowed in great affright. The 

72 


The Last Herd 


hunter seized the stiff tail, and calling to his horse, 
leaped off. But his strength was far spent, and the 
buffalo, larger than his fellows, threshed about and 
jerked in terror. Jones threw it again and again. 
But it struggled up, never once ceasing its loua 
demands for help. Finally the hunter tripped it 
up and fell upon it with his knees. 

Above the rumble of retreating hoofs, Jones heard 
the familiar short, quick, jarring pound on the turf. 
Kentuck neighed his alarm and raced to the right. 
Bearing down on the hunter, hurtling through the 
air, was a giant furry mass, instinct with fierce life 
and power — a buffalo cow robbed of her young. 

With his senses almost numb, barely able to pull 
and raise the Colt, the plainsman willed to live, and 
to keep his captive. His leveled arm wavered like 
a leaf in a storm. 

Bang! Fire, smoke, a shock, a jarring crash, and 
silence I 

The calf stirred beneath him. He put out a hand 
to touch a wann, furry coat. The mother had fallen 
beside him. Lifting a heavy hoof, he laid it over 
the neck of the calf to serve as additional weight. 
He lay still and listened. The rumble of the herd 
died away in the distance. 

The evening waned. Still the hunter lay quiet. 
From time to time the calf struggled and bellowed. 

73 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

Lank, gray wolves appeared on all sides; they 
prowled about with hungry howls, and shoved black- 
tipped noses through the grass. The sun sank, and 
the sky paled to opal blue. A star shone out, then 
another, and another. Over the prairie slanted the 
first dark shadow of night. 

Suddenly the hunter laid his ear to the ground, and 
listened. Faint beats, like throbs of a pulsing heart, 
shuddered from the soft turf. Stronger they grew, till 
the hunter raised his head. Dark forms approached ; 
voices broke the silence; the creaking of a wagon 
scared away the wolves. 

“ This way ! ” shouted the hunter weakly. 

“Ha! here he is. Hurt?” cried Rude, vaulting 
the wheel. 

“ Tie up this calf. How many — did you find? ” 
The voice grew fainter. 

“ Seven — alive, and in good shape, and all your 
clothes.” 

But the last words fell on unconscious ears. 


CHAPTER IVi 


THE TRAIL 

“ "'I ^RANK, what’ll wc do about horses? ” asked 
Jones. “ Jim’ll want the bay, and of course 
you’ll want to ride Spot. The rest of our 
nags will only do to pack the outfit.” x 

“ I’ve been thinkin’,” replied the foreman. “ You 
sure will need good mounts. Now it happens that 
a friend of mine is just at this time at House Rock 
Valley, an outlyin’ post of one of the big Utah 
ranches. He Is gettin’ in the horses off the range, 
an’ he has some crackin’ good ones. Let’s ooze over 
there — It’s only thirty miles — an’ get some horses 
from him.” 

We were all eager to act upon Frank’s suggestion. 
So plans were made for the three of us to ride over 
and select our mounts. Frank and Jim would follow 
with the pack train, and if all went well, on th&^ 
following evening we would camp under the shadow 
of Buckskin. 

Early next morning we were on our way. I tried 
to find a soft place on Old Ealdy, one of Frank’s 
pack horses. He was a hor^e that would not have 
75 


/ 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

raised up at the trumpet of doom. Nothing under 
the sun, Frank said, bothered Old Baldy but the 
operation of shoeing. We made the distance to the 
outpost by noon, and found Frank’s friend a genial 
and obliging cowboy, who said we could have all 
the horses we wanted. 

While Jones and Wallace strutted round the big 
corral, which was full of vicious, dusty, shaggy 
horses and mustangs, I sat high on the fence. I 
heard them talking about points and girth and stride, 
and a lot of terms that I could not understand. 
Wallace selected a heavy sorrel, and Jones a big bay, 
very like Jim’s. I had observed, way over in the 
corner of the corral, a bunch of cayuses, and among 
them a clean-limbed black horse. Edging round on 
the fence I got a closer view, and then cried out 
that I had found my horse. I jumped down and 
caught him, much to my surprise, for the other horses 
were wild, and had kicked viciously. The black 
was beautifully built, wide-chested and powerful, 
but not heavy. His coat glistened like sheeny black 
satin, and he had a white face and white feet and a 
long mane. 

“ I don’t know about giving you Satan — that’s his 
name,” said the cowboy. “ The foreman rides him 
often. He’s the fastest, the best climber, and the 
best dlsposltioned horse on the range. 

76 


The Trail 


“ But I guess I can let you have him,” he con- 
tinued, when he saw my disappointed face. 

“By George!” exclaimed Jones. “YouVe got 
it on us this time.” 

“Would you like to trade?” asked Wallace, as 
his sorrel tried to bite him. “ That black looks sort 
of fierce.” 

I led my prize out of the corral, up to the little 
cabin nearby, where I tied him, and proceeded to get 
acquainted after a fashion of my own. Though not 
versed in horse-lore, I knew that half the battle was 
to win his confidence. I smoothed his silky coat, 
and patted him, and then surreptitiously slipped a 
lump of sugar from my pocket. This sugar, which 
I had purloined in Flagstaff, and carried all the way 
across the desert, was somewhat disreputably soiled, 
and Satan sniffed at it disdainfully. Evidently he 
had never smelled or tasted sugar. I pressed it into 
his mouth. He munched it, and then looked me 
over with some interest. I handed him another lump. 

, He took it and rubbed his nose against me. Satan 
J was mine 1 

Frank and Jim came along early in the afternoon. 
What with packing, changing saddles and shoeing 
the horses, we were all busy. Old Baldy would not 
be shod, so we let him off till a more opportune time. 
By four o’clock we were riding toward the slopes of 
77 


/ 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

Buckskin, now only a few miles away, standing up 
higher and darker. 

“What’s that for?” inquired Wallace, pointing 
to a long, rusty, wire-wrapped, doubje-barreled blun- 
derbuss of a shotgun, stuck in the holster of Jones’s 
saddle. 

The Colonel, who had been having a fine time with 
the impatient and curious hounds, did not vouchsafe 
any information on that score. But very shortly we 
were destined to learn the use of this incongruous 
firearm. I was riding in advance of Wallace, and a 
little behind Jones. The dogs — excepting Jude, who 
had been kicked and lamed — ^were ranging along 
before their master. Suddenly, right before me, I 
saw an immense jack-rabbit; and just then Moze and 
Don caught sight of it. In fact, Moze bumped his 
blunt nose into the rabbit. When it leaped into 
scared action,' Moze yelped, and Don followed suit. 
Then they were after it in wild, clamoring pursuit. 
Jones let out the stentorian blast, now becoming 
familiar, and spurred after them. He reached over, 
pulled the shotgun out of the holster and fired both 
barrels at the jumping dogs. 

I expressed my amazement in strong language, and 
Wallace whistled. 

Don came sneaking back with his tail between his 
legs, and Moze, who had cowered as if stung, circled 
78 


The Trail 


round ahead of us. Jones finally succeeded in getting 
him back. 

“ Come in hyah I You measly rabbit dogs ! What 
do you mean chasing off that way? We’re after 
lions. Lions ! understand ? ” 

Don looked thoroughly convinced of his error, but 
Moze, being more thick-headed, appeared mystified 
rather than hurt or frightened. 

“ What size shot do you use? ” I asked. 

“ Number ten. They don’t hurt much at seventy- 
five yards,” replied our leader. “ I use them as sort 
of a long arm. You see, the dogs must be made to 
know what we’re after. Ordinary means would never 
do in a case like this. My idea is to break them off 
coyotes, wolves and deer, and when we cross a lion 
trail, let them go. I’ll teach them sooner than you’d 
think. Only we must get where we can see what 
they’re trailing. Then I can tell whether to call th^tm 
back or not.” 

The sun was gilding the rim of the desert rampaf'ts 
when we began the ascent of the foothills of Buck- 
skin. A steep trail wound zigzag up the mountain. 
We led our horses, as it was a long, hard clin?b. 
From time to time, as I stopped to catch my breath, 
I gazed away across the growing void to the gorgef^us 
Pink Cliffs, far above and beyond the red wall which 
had seemed so high, and then out toward the desrn. 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


The irregular ragged crack in the plain, apparently 
only a thread of broken ground, was the Grand 
Canon. How unutterably remote, wild, grand was 
that world of red and brown, of purple pall, of vague 
outline ! 

Two thousand feet, probably, we mounted to what 
Frank called Little Buckskin. In the west a copper 
glow, ridged with lead-colored clouds, marked where 
the sun had set. The air was very thin and icy cold. 
At the first clump of pihon pines, we made dry camp. 
When I sat down it was as if I had been anchored. 
Frank solicitously remarked that I looked “ sort of 
beat.” Jim built a roaring fire and began getting 
supper. A snow squall came on the rushing wind. 
The air grew colder, and though I hugged the fire, 
I could not get warm. When I had satisfied my hun- 
ger, I rolled out my sleeping-bag and crept into it. 
I stretched my aching limbs and did not move again. 
Once I awoke, drowsily feeling the warmth of the 
fire, and I heard Frank say: “ He’s asleep, dead to 
the world I ” 

“ He’s all in,” said Jones. “ Riding’s what did it. 
You know how a horse tears a man to pieces.” 

“ Will he be able to stand it? ” asked Frank, with 
as much solicitude as if he were my brother. “ When 
you get out after anythin’ — ^well, you’re hell. An’ 
think of the country we’re goin’ into. I know you’ve 
80 


The Trail 


never seen the breaks of the Siwash, but I have, an’ 
it’s the worst an’ roughest country I ever saw. Breaks 
after breaks, like the ridges on a washboard, headin’ 
on the south slope of Buckskin, an’ runnin’ down, 
side by side, miles an’ miles, deeper an’ deeper, till 
they run into that awful hole. It will be a killin’ 
trip on men, horses an’ dogs. Now, Mr. Wallace, 
he’s been campin’ an’ roughin’ with the Navajos for 
months; he’s in some kind of shape, but ” 

Frank concluded his remark with a doubtful pause. 

“ I’m some worried, too,” replied Jones. “ But 
he v/ould come. He stood the desert well enough; 
even the Mormons* said that.” 

In the ensuing silence the fire sputtered, the glare 
fitfully merged into dark shadows under the weird 
piiions, and the wind moaned through the short 
branches. 

“ Wal,” drawled a slow, soft voice, “ shore I 
reckon you’re hollerin’ too soon. Frank’s measly 
trick puttin’ him on Spot showed me. He rode out 
on Spot, an’ he rode in on Spot. Shore he’ll stay.” 

It was not all the warmth of the blankets that 
glowed over me then. The voices died away 
dreamily, and my eyelids dropped sleepily tight. 
Late in the night I sat up suddenly, roused by some 
unusual disturbance. The fire was dead; the wind 
swept with a rush through the pinons. From the 
81 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

black darkness came the staccato chorus of coyotes. 
Don barked his displeasure ; Sounder made the welkin 
ring, and old Moze growled low and deep, grum- 
bling like muttered thunder. Then all was quiet, 
and I slept. , 

Dawn, rosy red, confronted me when I opened my 
eyes. Breakfast was ready; Frank was packing Old 
Baldy; Jones talked to his horse as he saddled him; 
Wallace came stooping his giant figure under the 
pihons ; the dogs, eager and soft-eyed, sat around Jim 
and begged. The sun peeped over the Pink Cliffs; 
the desert still lay asleep, tranced in a purple and 
golden-streaked mist. 

“Come, come!” said Jones, in his big voice. 

“ We’re slow; here’s the sun.” 

“ Easy, easy,” replied Frank, “ we’ve all the time 
there is.” 

When Frank threw the saddle over Satan I inter- 
rupted him and said I would care for my horse hence- 
forward. Soon we were under way, the horses fresh, 
the dogs scenting the keen, cold air. 

The trail rolled over the ridges of pinon and ^ 
scrubby pine. Occasionally we could see the black, 
ragged crest of Buckskin above us. From one of 
these ridges I took my last long look back at the 
desert, and engraved on my mind a picture of the 
red wall, and the many-hued ocean of sand. The 
82 


The Trail 


trail, narrow and indistinct, mounted the last slow- 
rising slope; the pihons failed, and the scrubby pines 
became abundant. At length we reached the top, 
and entered the great arched aisles of Buckskin 
Forest. The ground was flat as a table. Magnifi- 
cent pine trees, far apart, with branches high and 
spreading, gave the eye glad welcome. Some of these 
monarchs were eight feet thick at the base and two 
hundred feet high. Here and there one lay, gaunt 
and prostrate, a victim of the wind. The smell of 
pitch pine was sweetly overpowering. 

“ When I went through here two weeks ago, the 
snow was a foot deep, an’ I bogged in places,” said 
Frank. “ The sun has been oozin’ round here some. 
I’m afraid Jones won’t find any snow on this end of 
Buckskin.” 

Thirty miles of winding trail, brown and springy 
from its thick mat of pine needles, shaded always by 
the massive, seamy-barked trees, took us over the 
extremity of Buckskin. Then we faced down into 
the head of a ravine that ever grew deeper, stonier 
and rougher. I shifted from side to side, from leg 
to leg in my saddle, dismounted and hobbled before 
Satan, mounted again, and rode on. Jones called 
the dogs and complained to them of the lack of 
snow. Wallace sat his horse comfortably, taking 
long pulls at his pipe and long gazes at the shaggy 
83 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

sides of the ravine. Frank, energetic and tireless, 
kept the pack-horses in the trail. Jim jogged on 
silently. And so we rode down to Oak Spring. 

The spring was pleasantly situated in a grove' of 
oaks and pihons, under the shadow of three cliffs. 
Three ravines opened here into an oval valley. A 
rude cabin of rough-hewn logs stood near the spring. 

“ Get down, get down,” sang out Frank. “ We’ll 
hang up here. Beyond Oak is No-Man’s-Land. We 
take our chances on water after we leave here.” 

When we had unsaddled, unpacked, and got a 
fire roaring on the wide stone hearth of the cabin, 
it was once again night. 

“ Boys,” said Jones after supper, “ we’re now on 
the edge of the lion country. Frank saw lion sign 
in here only two weeks ago; and though the snow is 
gone, we stand a show of finding tracks in the sand 
and dust. To-morrow morning, before the sun gets 
a chance at the bottom of these ravines, we’ll be up 
and doing. We’ll each take a dog and search in 
different directions. Keep the dog in leash, and when 
he opens up, examine the ground carefully for tracks. 
If a dog opens on any track that you are sure isn’t 
a lion’s, punish him. And when a lion-track is found, 
hold the dog in, wait and signal. We’ll use a signal 
I have tried and found far-reaching and easy to yell. 
Waa-hool That’s it. Once yelled it means come. 


The Trail 


Twice means comes quickly. Three times means 
come — danger! ” 

In one corner of the cabin was a platform of 
poles, covered with straw. I threw the sleeping-bag , 
on this, and was soon stretched out/ Misgivings as » 
to my strength worried me before I closed my eyes. 
Once on my back, I felt I could not rise; my chest 
was sore; my cough deep and rasping. It seemed 
I had scarcely closed my eyes when Jones’s impatient 
voice recalled me from sweet oblivion. 

“Frank, Frank, it’s daylight. Jim — ^boys!” he 
called. 

I tumbled out in a gray, wan twilight. It was cold 
enough to make the fire acceptable, but nothing like 
the morning before on Buckskin. 

“ Come to the festal board,” drawlfed Jim, almost 
before I had my boots laced. 

“ Jones,” said Frank, “ Jim an’ I’ll ooze round 
here to-day. There’s lots to do, an’ we want to have 
things hitched right before we strike for the Siwash. 
We’ve got to shoe Old Baldy, an’ if we can’t get him 
locoed, it’ll take all of us to do it.” 

The light was still gray when Jones led off with 
Don, Wallace with Sounder and I with Moze. Jones 
directed us to separate, follow the dry stream beds in 
the ravines, and remember his instructions given the 
night before. 


85 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

The ravine to the right, which I entered, was 
choked with huge stones fallen from the cliff above, 
and pihons growing thick; and I wondered appre- 
jhensively how a man could evade a wild animal in 
' such a place, much less chase it. 

Old Moze pulled on his chain and sniffed at coyote 
and deer tracks. And every time he evinced interest 
in such, I cut him with a switch, which, to tell the 
truth, he did not notice. 

I thought I heard a shout, and holding Moze 
tight, I waited and listened. 

“ Waa-hoo — waa-hool ” floated on the air, rather 
deadened as if it had come from round the triangular 
cliff that faced into the valley. Urging and dragging 
Moze, I ran down the ravine as fast as I could, and 
soon encountered Wallace coming from the middle 
ravine. 

“ Jones,” he said excitedly, “ this way — there’s the 
signal again.” 

We dashed in haste for the mouth of the third 
ravine, and came suddenly upon Jones, kneeling under 
a pinon tree. 

“ Boys, look! ” he exclaimed, as he pointed to the 
ground. There, clearly defined in the dust, was a cat 
track as big as my spread hand, and the mere sight 
of it sent a chill up my spine. “ There’s a lion track 
for you; made by a female, a two-year-old; but I 
86 


The Trail 


can’t say if she passed here last night. Don won’t 
take the trail. Try Moze.” 

I led Moze to the big, round imprint, and put his 
nose down into it. The old hound sniffed and 
sniffed, then lost interest. 

“Cold!” ejaculated Jones. “No go. Try 
Sounder. Come, old boy, you’ve the nose for it.” 

He urged the relucant hound forward. Sounder 
needed not to be shown the trail; he stuck his nose 
in it, and stood very quiet for a long moment; then 
he quivered slightly, raised his nose and sought the 
next track. Step by step he went slowly, doubtfully. 
All at once his tail wagged stiffly. 

“ Look at that! ” cried Jones in delight. “ He’s 
caught a scent when the others couldn’t. Hyah, 
Moze, get back. Keep Moze and Don back; give 
him room.” 

Slowly Sounder paced up the ravine, as carefully 
as if he were traveling on thin ice. He passed the 
dusty, open trail to a scaly ground with little bits 
of grass, and he kept on. 

We were electrified to hear him give vent to a deep 
bugle-blast note of eagerness. 

‘ “ By George, he’s got it, boys! ” exclaimed Jones, 
as he lifted the stubborn, struggling hound off the 
trail. “ I know that bay. It means a lion passed 
here this morning. And we’ll get him up as sure 
87 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


as you’re alive. Come, Sounder. Now for the 
horses.” 

As we ran pell-mell into the little glade, where 
Jim sat mending some saddle trapping, Frank rode 
up the trail with the horses. 

‘‘ Well, I heard Sounder,” he said with his genial 
smile. “ Somethin’s cornin’ off, eh? You’ll have to 
ooze round some to keep up with that hound.” 

I saddled Satan with fingers that trembled in 
excitement, and pushed my little Remington auto- 
matic into the rifle holster. 

“ Boys, listen,” said our leader. “ We’re off now 
in the beginning of a hunt new to you. Remember — 
no shooting, no blood-letting, except in self-defense. 
Keep as close to me as you can. Listen for the dogs, 
and when you fall behind or separate, yell out the 
signal cry. Don’t forget this. We’re bound to 
lose each other. Look out for the spikes and branches 
on the trees. If the dogs split, whoever follows the 
one that trees the lion must wait there till the rest 
come up. Off now! Come, Sounder; Moze, you 
rascal, hyah! Come, Don, come. Puppy, and take 
your medicine.” 

Except Moze, the hounds were all trembling and 
running eagerly to and fro. When Sounder was 
loosed, he led them in a bee-line to the trail, with us 
cantering after. Sounder worked exactly as before, 
88 


The Trail 


only he followed the lion tracks a little farther up 
the ravine before he bayed. He kept going faster 
and faster, occasionally letting out one deep, short 
yelp. The other hounds did not give tongue, but , 
eager, excited, baffled, kept at his heels. The ravine ^ 
was long, and the wash at the bottom, up which the 
lion had proceeded, turned and twisted round 
bowlders large as houses, and led through dense 
growths of some short, rough shrub. Now and then 
the lion tracks showed plainly in the sand. For five 
miles or more Sounder led us up the ravine, which 
began to contract and grow steep. The dry stream 
bed got to be full of thickets of poplar — tall, straight, 
branchless saplings, about the size of a man’s arm, 
and growing so close we had to press them aside to 
let our horses through. ^ 

Presently Sounder slowed up and appeared at 
fault. We found him puzzling over an open, grassy 
patch, and after nosing it for a little while, he began 
skirting the edge. 

“Cute dog!” declared Jones. “That Sounder 
will make a lion chaser. Our game has gone up here 
somewhere.” 

Sure enough. Sounder directly gave tongue from 
the side of the ravine. It was climb for us now. 
Broken shale, rocks of all dimensions, pihons down 
and pinons up made ascending no easy problem. We 
89 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

had to dismount and lead the horses, thus losing 
ground. Jones forged ahead and reached the top 
of the ravine first. When Wallace and I got up, 
breathing heavily, Jones and the hounds were out of 
sight. But Sounder kept voicing his clear call, giving 
us our direction. Off we flew, over ground that was 
still rough, but enjoyable going compared to the 
ravine slopes. The ridge was sparsely covered with 
cedar and pihon, through which, far ahead, we pretty 
soon spied Jones. Wallace signaled, and our leader 
answered twice. We caught up with him on the 
brink of another ravine deeper and craggier than the 
first, full of dead, gnarled pihon and splintered rocks. 

“ This gulch is the largest of the three that head 
In at Oak Spring,” said Jones. “ Boys, don’t forget 
your direction. Always keep a feeling where camp 
is, always sense it every time you turn. The dogs 
have gone down. That lion is in here somewhere. 
Maybe he lives down in the high cliffs near the spring 
and came up here last night for a kill he’s buried 
somewhere. Lions never travel far. Hark I Hark ! 
There’s Sounder and the rest of them! They’ve 
got the scent; they’ve all got it! Down, boys, down, 
and ride! ” 

With that he crashed into the cedar in a way that 
showed me how impervious he was to slashing 
branches, sharp as thorns, and steep descent and peril. 

90 


The Trail 


Wallace’s big sorrel plunged after him and the roll- 
ing stones cracked. Suffering as I was by this time, 
with cramp in my legs, and torturing pain, I had to 
choose between holding my horse in or falling off; 
so I chose the former and accordingly got behind. I 

Dead cedar and pihon trees lay everywhere, with 
their contorted limbs reaching out like the arms of a 
devil-fish. Stones blocked every opening. Making 
the bottom of the ravine after what seemed an intcr- 
mxinable time, I found the tracks of Jones and Wal- 
lace. A long “ Waa-hoo! ” drew me on; then the 
mellow bay of a hound floated up the ravine. Satan 
made up time in the sandy stream bed, but kept me 
busily dodging overhanging branches. I became 
aware, after a succession of efforts to keep from being 
strung on pihons, that the sand before me was clean 
and trackless. Hauling Satan up sharply, I waited 
irresolutely and listened. Then from high up the 
ravine side wafted down a medley of yelps and barks. 

“ Waa-hoo, waa-hoo!” ringing down the slope, 
pealed against the cliff behind me, and sent the wild ^ 
echoes flying. 

Satan, of his own accord, headed up the incline. 
Surprised at this, I gave him free rein. How he 
did climb ! Not long did it take me to discover that 
he picked out easier going than I had. Once I saw 
Jones crossing a ledge far above me, and I yelled our 
91 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


signal cry. The answer returned clear and sharp; 
then its echo cracked under the hollow cliff, and 
crossing and recrossing the ravine, it died at last far 
away, like the muffled peal of a bell-buoy. Again I 
heard the blended yelping of the hounds, and closer 
at hand. I saw a long, low cliff above, and decided 
that the hounds were running at the base of it. 
Another chorus of yelps, quicker, wilder than the 
others, drew a yell from me. Instinctively I knew 
the dogs had jumped game of some kind. Satan 
knew it as well as I, for he quickened his pace and 
sent the stones clattering behind him. 

I gained the base of the yellow cliff, but found no 
tracks in the dust of ages that had crumbled in its 
shadow, nor did I hear the dogs. Considering how 
close they had seemed, this was strange. I halted 
and listened. Silence reigned supreme. The ragged 
cracks in the cliff walls could have harbored many a 
watching lion, and I cast an apprehensive glance into 
their dark coniines. Then I turned my horse to get 
round the cliff and over the ridge. When I again 
I stopped, all I could hear was the thumping of my 
heart and the labored panting of Satan. I came to 
a break in the cliff, a steep place of weathered rock, 
and I put Satan to it. He went up with a will. From 
the narrow saddle of the ridge-crest I tried to take 
my bearings. Below me slanted the green of pinon, 

92 


The Trail 


with the bleached treetops standing like spears, and 
uprising yellow stones. Fancying I heard a gun- 
shot, I leaned a straining ear against the soft breeze. 
The proof came presently in the unmistakable report 
of Jones’s blunderbuss. It was repeated almost 
instantly, giving reality to the direction, which was 
down the slope of what I concluded must be the 
third ravine. Wondering what was the meaning of 
the shots, and chagrined because I was out of the 
race, but calmer in mind, I let Satan stand. 

Hardly a moment elapsed before a sharp bark 
tingled in my cars. It belonged to old Moze. Soon 
I distinguished a rattling of stones and the sharp, 
metallic clicks of hoofs striking rocks. Then into 
a space below me loped a beautiful deer, so large that 
at first I took it for an elk. Another sharp bark, 
nearer this time, told the tale of Moze’s dereliction. 
In a few moments he came in sight, running with 
his tongue out and his head high. 

“ Hyah, you old gladiator I hyahl hyahl ” I yelled 
and yelled again. Moze passed over the saddle on 
the trail of the deer, and his short bark floated back 
to remind me how far he was from a lion dog. 

Then I divined the meaning of the shotgun 
reports. The hounds had crossed a fresher trail than 
that of the lion, and our leader had discovered it. 
Despite a keen appreciation of Jones’s task, I gave 
93 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

way to amusement, and repeated Wallace’s para- 
doxical formula : “ Pet the lions and shoot the 
hounds.” 

So I headed down the ravine, looking for a blunt, 
bold crag, which I had descried from camp. I found 
it before long, and profiting by past failures to judge 
of distance, gave my first impression a great stretch, 
and then decided that I was more than two miles 
from Oak. 

Long after two miles had been covered, and I had 
begun to associate Jim’s biscuits with a certain soft 
seat near a ruddy fire, I was apparently still the same 
distance from my landmark crag. Suddenly a slight 
noise brought me to a halt. I listened intently. Only 
an indistinct rattling of small rocks disturbed the 
impressive stillness. It might have been the weather- 
ing that goes on constantly, and it might have been 
an animal. I inclined to the former idea till I saw 
Satan’s ears go up. Jones had told me to watch 
the ears of my horse, and short as had been my 
acquaintance with Satan, I had learned that he always 
discovered things more quickly than I. So I waited 
patiently. 

From time to time a rattling roll of pebbles, almost 
musical, caught my ear. It came from the base of 
the wall of yellow cliff that barred the summit of 
all those ridges. Satan threw up his head and nosed 

94 


The Trail 

the breeze. The delicate, almost stealthy sounds, 
the action of my/horse, the waiting drove my heart 
to extra work. J^The breeze quickened and fanned my 
cheek, and borne upon it came the faint and far-away 
bay of a hound. It came again and again, each time 
nearer. Then on a stronger puff of wind rang the 
clear, deep, mellow call that had given Sounder his 
beautiful name. Never it seemed had I heard music 
so blood-stirring. Sounder was on the trail of some- 
thing, and he had it headed my way. Satan heard, 
shot up his long ears, and tried to go ahead; but I 
restrained and soothed him into quiet. 

Long moments I sat there, with the poignant con- 
sciousness of the wildness of the scene, of the signifi- 
cant rattling of the stones and of the bell-tongued 
hound baying incessantly, sending warm joy through 
my veins, the absorption in sensations new, yielding 
only to the hunting instinct when Satan snorted and 
quivered. Again the deep-toned bay rang into the 
silence with its stirring thrill of life. And a sharp 
rattling of stones just above brought another snort 
from Satan. 

Across an open space in the pihons a gray form 
flashed. I leaped off Satan and knelt to get a better 
view under the trees. I soon made out another deer 
passing along the base of the cliff. Mounting again, 
I rode up to the cliff to wait for Sounder. 

95 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

A long time I had to wait for the hound. It 
proved that the atmosphere was as deceiving in 
regard to sound as to sight. Finally Sounder came 
running along the wall. I got off to intercept him. 
The crazy fellow — he had never responded to my 
overtures of friendship — uttered short, sharp yelps 
of delight, and actually leaped into my arms. But 
I could not hold him. He darted upon the trail 
again and paid no heed to my angry shouts. With 
a resolve to overhaul him, I jumped on Satan and 
whirled after the hound. 

The black stretched out with such a stride that I 
was at pains to keep my seat. I dodged the jutting 
rocks and projecting snags; felt stinging branches in 
my face and the rush of sweet, dry wind. Under 
the crumbling walls, over slopes of weathered stone 
and droppings of shelving rock, round protruding 
noses of cliff, over and under pihons Satan thundered. 
He came out on the top of the ridge, at the narrow 
back I had called a saddle. Here I caught a glimpse 
of Sounder far below, going down into the ravine 
from which I had ascended some time before. I 
called to him, but I might as well have called to the 
wind. 

Weary to the point of exhaustion, I once more 
turned Satan toward camp. I lay forward on his 
neck and let him have his will. Far down the ravine 
96 


The Trail 


I awoke to strange sounds, and soon recognized the 
cracking of iron-shod hoofs against stone ; then voices. 
Turning an abrupt bend in the sandy wash, I ran 
into Jones and Wallace. 

“ Fall in ! Line up in the sad procession I ” said 
Jones. “ Tige and the pup arc faithful. The rest 
of the dogs are somewhere between the Grand Canon 
and the Utah desert.” 

I related my adventures, and tried to spare Moze 
and Sounder as much as conscience would permit. 

“ Hard luck! ” commented Jones. “Just as the 
hounds jumped the cougar — Oh! they bounced him 
out of the rocks all right — don’t you remember, just 
under that cliff wall where you and Wallace came up 
to me? Well, just as they jumped him, they ran right 
into fresh deer tracks. I saw one of the deer. Now 
that’s too much for any hounds, except those trained 
for lions. I shot, at Moze tv^ice, but couldn’t turn 
him. He has to be hurt, they’ve all got to be hurt 
to make them understand.” 

Wallace told of a wild ride somewhere in Jones’s 
wake, and of sundry knocks and bruises he had sus- 
tained, of pieces of corduroy he had left decorating 
the cedars and of a most humiliating event, where a 
gaunt and bare pihon snag had penetrated under his 
belt and lifted him, mad and kicking, off his horse. 

“ These Western nags will hang you on a limb 
97 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


every chance they get/’ declared Jones, “ and don’t 
you overlook that. Well, there’s the cabin. We’d 
better stay here a few days or a week and break in 
the dogs and horses, for this day’s work was apple-pie 
to what we’ll get in the Siwash.” 

I groaned inwardly, and was remorselessly glad 
to see Wallace fall off his horse and walk on one leg 
to the cabin. When I got my saddle off Satan, had 
given him a drink and hobbled him, I crept into the 
cabin and dropped like a log. I felt as if every bone 
in my body was broken and my flesh was raw. I 
got gleeful gratification from Wallace’s complaints, 
and Jones’s remark that he had a stitch in his back. 
So ended the first chase after cougars. 


CHAPTER y 


OAK SPRING 

M OZE and Don and Sounder straggled Into 
camp next morning, hungry, footsore and 
scarred; and as they limped in, Jones met 
them with characteristic speech: “ Well, you decided 
to come In when you got hungry and tired? Never' 
thought of how you fooled me, did you? Now, the 
first thing you get Is a good licking.” 

He tied them in a little log pen near the cabin and 
whipped them soundly. And the next few days, 
while Wallace and I rested, he took them out sepa- 
rately and deliberately ran them over coyote and deer 
trails. Sometimes we heard his stentorian yell as a 
forerunner to the blast from his old shotgun. Then 
again we heard the shots unheralded by the ^yell. 
Wallace and I waxed warm under the collar over 
this peculiar method of training dogs, and each of 
us made dire threats. But In justice to their Implaca- 
ble trainer, the dogs never appeared to be hurt; 
never a spot of blood flecked their glossy coats, nor 
did they ever come home limping. Sounder grew 
wise, and Don gave up, but Moze appeared not to 
change. 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


“ All hands ready to rustic,” sang out Frank one 
morning. “ Old Baldy’s got to be shod.” 

This brought us all, except Jones, out of the cabin, 
to sec the object of Frank’s anxiety tied to a nearby 
oak. At first I failed to recognize Old Baldy. Van- 
ished was the slow, sleepy, apathetic manner that 
had characterized him; his ears lay back on his head; 
fire flashed from his eyes. When Frank threw down 
a kit-bag, which emitted a metallic clanking. Old 
Baldy sat back on his haunches, planted his forefeet 
deep in the ground and plainly as a horse could speak, 
said “No!” 

“ Sometimes he’s bad, and sometimes worse,” 
growled Frank. 

“ Shore he’s plumb bad this mornin’,” replied Jim. 

Frank got the three of us to hold Baldy’s head and 
pull him up, then he ventured to lift a hind foot over 
his knee. Old Baldy straightened out his leg and 
sent Frank sprawling into the dirt. Twice again 
Frank patiently tried to hold a hind leg, with the 
same result; and then he lifted a forefoot. Baldy 
uttered a very intelligible snort, bit through Wallace’s 
glove, yanked Jim off his feet, and scared me so that 
I let go his forelook. Then he broke the rope which 
held him to the tree. There was a plunge, a scatter- 
ing of men, though Jim still valiantly held on to 
Baldy’s head, and a thrashing of scrub pihon, where 
100 


Oak Spring 

Baldy reached out vigorously with his hind feet. But 
for Jim, he would have escaped. 

“What’s all the row?” called Jones from the 
cabin. Then from the door, taking in the situation, 
he yelled : “ Hold on, Jim I Pull down on the ornery 
old cayuse I ” 

He leaped into action with a lasso in each hand, 
one whirling round his head. The slender rope 
straightened with a whiz and whipped round Baldy’s 
legs as he kicked viciously. Jones pulled it tight, 
then fastened it with nimble fingers to the tree. 

“Let go! let go, Jim!” he yelled, whirling the 
other lasso. The loop flashed and fell over Baldy’s 
head and tightened round his neck. Jones threw all 
the weight of his burly form on the lariat, and Baldy 
crashed to the ground, rolled, tussled, screamed, and 
then lay on his back, kicking the air with three free 
legs. “ Hold this ! ” ordered Jones, giving the tight 
rope to Frank. Whereupon he* grabbed my lasso 
from the saddle, roped Baldy’s two forefeet, and 
pulled him down on his side. This lasso he fastened 
to a scrub cedar. 

“ He’s chokin’ ! ” said Frank. 

“ Likely he is,” replied Jones shortly. “ It’ll do 
him good.” But with his big hands he drew the coil 
loose and slipped it down over Baldy’s nose, where 
he tightened it again. 


101 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


“ Now, go ahead,” he said, taking the rope from 
Frank. 

It had all been done in a twinkling. Baldy lay 
there groaning and helpless, and when Frank once 
again took hold of the wicked leg, he was almost 
passive. When the shoeing operation had been 
neatly and quickly attended to and Baldy released 
from his uncomfortable position he struggled to his 
feet with heavy breaths, shook himself, and looked 
at his master. 

“ How’d you like being hog-tied?” queried his 
conqueror, rubbing Baldy’s nose. “ Now, after this 
you’ll have some manners.” 

Old Baldy seemed to understand, for he looked 
sheepish, and lapsed once more into his listless, lazy 
unconcern. 

“Where’s Jim’s old cayuse, the pack-horse?” 
asked our leader. 

“ Lost. Couldn’t find him this morning, an’ had 
a deuce of a time findin’ the rest of the bunch. Old 
Baldy was cute. He hid in a bunch of pihons an’ 
stood quiet so his bell wouldn’t ring. I had to trail 
him.” 

“ Do the horses stray far when they are hobbled? ” 
inquired Wallace. 

“ If they keep jumpin’ all night they can cover 
some territory. We’re now on the edge of the wild 
102 


Oak Spring 

horse country, and our nags know this as well as we. 
They smell the mustangs, an’ would break their necks 
to get away. Satan and the sorrel were ten miles 
from camp when I found them this mornin’. An’ 
Jim’s cayuse went farther, an’ we never will get him. 
He’ll wear his hobbles out, then away with the wild 
horses. Once with them, he’ll never be caught 
again.” 

On the sixth day of our stay at Oak we had 
visitors, whom Frank introduced as the Stewart 
brothers and Lawson, wild-horse wranglers. They 
were still, dark men, whose facial expression seldom 
varied ; tall and lithe and wiry as the mustangs they 
rode. The Stewarts were on their way to Kanab, 
Utah, to arrange for the sale of a drove of horses 
they had^ captured and corraled in a narrow canon 
back in the Siwash. Lawson said he was at our 
service, and was promptly hired to look after our 
horses. 

“Any cougar signs back in the breaks?” asked 
Jones. 

“ Wal, there’s a cougar on every deer trail,” 
replied the elder Stewart, “ an’ two for every pinto 
in the breaks. Old Tom himself downed fifteen 
colts fer us this spring.” 

“ Fifteen colts I That’s wholesale murder. Why 

don’t you kill the butcher? ” 

103 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

“ WeVe tried more’n onct. It’s a turrible busted 
up country, them brakes. No man knows it, an’ the 
cougars do. Old Tom ranges all the ridges and 
brakes, even up on the slopes of Buckskin ; but he 
^ lives down there in them holes, an’ Lord knows, no 
dog I ever seen could follow him. We tracked him 
in the snow, an’ had dogs after him, but none could 
stay with him, except two as never cum back. But 
we’ve nothin’ agin Old Tom like Jeff Clarke, a hoss 
rustler, who has a string of pintos corraled north of 
us. Clarke swears he ain’t raised a colt in two years.” 

‘‘ We’ll put that old cougar up a tree,” exclaimed 
Jones. 

“If you kill him we’ll make you all a present of a 
mustang, an’ Clarke, he’ll give you two each,” replied 
Stewart. “ We’d be gettin’ rid of him cheap.” 

“ How many wild horses on the mountain now? ” 

“ Hard to tell. Two or three thousand, mebbe. 
There’s almost no ketchin’ them, an’ they’re growin’ 
all the time. We ain’t had no luck this spring. The 
bunch in corral we got last year.” 

“ Seen anythin’ of the White Mustang? ” inquired 
Frank. “ Ever get a rope near him ? ” 

“ No nearer’n we hev fer six years back. He can’t 
be ketched. We seen him an’ his band of blacks a 
few days ago, headin’ fer a water-hole down where 
Nail Canon runs into Kanab Canon. He’s so cunnin’ 

104 


Oak Spring 

he’ll never water at any of our trap corrals. An’ 
we believe he can go without water fer two weeks, 
unless mebbe he hes a secret hole we’ve never trailed 
him to.” 

“ Would we have any chance to see this White 
Mustang and his band? ” questioned Jones. 

“ See him? Why, thet’d be easy. Go down Snake 
Gulch, camp at Singin’ Cliffs, go over into Nail 
Canon, an’ wait. Then send some one slippin’ down 
to the water-hole at Kanab Canon, an’ when the band 
cums in to drink — ^which I reckon will be in a few 
days now — hev them drive the mustangs up. Only 
be sure to hev them get ahead of the White Mustang, 
so he’ll hev only one way to cum, fer he sure is 
knowin’. He never makes a mistake. Mebbe you’ll 
get to see him cum by like a white streak. Why, I’ve 
heerd thet mustang’s hoofs ring like bells on the 
rocks a mile away. His hoofs are harder’n any iron 
shoe as was ever made. But even if you don’t get 
to see him. Snake Gulch is worth seein’.” 

I learned later from Stewart that the White Mus- 
tang was a beautiful stallion of the wildest strain of 
mustang blue blood. He had roamed the long 
reaches between the Grand Canon and Buckskin 
toward its southern slope for years ; he had been the 
most sought-for horse by all the wranglers, and had 
become so shy and experienced that nothing but a 
105 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

glimpse was ever obtained of him. A singular fact 
was that he never attached any of his own species to 
his band, unless they were coal black. He had been 
known to fight and kill other stallions, but he kept 
out of the well-wooded and watered country fre- 
quented by other bands, and ranged the brakes of 
the Siwash as far as he could range. The usual 
method, indeed the only successful way to capture 
wild horses, was to build corrals round the water- 
holes. The wranglers lay out night after night 
watching. When the mustangs came to drink — 
which was always after dark — the gates would be 
closed on them. But the trick had never even been 
tried on the White Mustang, for the simple reason 
that he never approached one of these traps. 

“ Boys,” said Jones, “ seeing we need breaking 
in, we’ll give the White Mustang a little run.” 

This was most pleasureable news, for the wild 
horses fascinated me. Besides, I saw from the expres- 
sion on our leader’s face that an uncapturable mus- 
tang was an object of interest to him. 

' Wallace and I had employed the last few warm, 
sunny afternoons in riding up and down the valley 
below Oak, where there was a fine, level stretch. 
Here I wore out my soreness of muscle, and gradu- 
ally overcame my awkwardness in the saddle. 
Frank’s remedy of maple sugar and red pepper had 
106 


Oak Spring 

rid me of my cold, and with the return of strength, 
and the coming of confidence, full, joyous appreci- 
ation of wild environment and life made me unspeak- 
ably happy. And I noticed that my companions were 
in like condition of mind, though self-contained 
where I was exuberant. Wallace galloped his sorrel 
and watched the crags ; Jones talked more kindly to 
the dogs; Jim baked biscuits indefatigably, and 
smoked in contented silence; Frank said always: 
“ We’ll ooze along easy like, for we’ve all the time 
there is.” Which sentiment, whether from reiter- 
ated suggestion, or increasing confidence in the prac- 
tical cowboy, or charm of its free import, gradually 
won us all. 

“ Boys,” said Jones, as we sat round the campfire, 
“I see you’re getting in shape. Well, I’ve worn off 
the wire edge myself. And I have the hounds com- 
ing fine. They mind me now, but they’re mystified. 
For the life of them they can’t understand what I 
mean. I don’t blame them. Wait till, by good luck, 
we get a cougar in a tree. When Sounder and Don 
see that, we’ve lion dogs, boys! we’ve lion dogs! 
But Moze is a stubborn brute. In all my years of 
animal experience. I’ve never discovered any other 
way to make animals obey than by instilling fear and 
respect into their hearts. I’ve been fond of buffalo, 
horses and dogs, but sentiment never ruled me. 

107 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

When animals must obey, they must — that’s all, and 
no mawkishness I But I never trusted a buffalo in 
my life. If I had I wouldn’t be here to-night. You 
all know how many keepers of tame wild animals get 
killed. I could tell you dozens of tragedies. And 
I’ve often thought, since I got back from New York, 
of that woman I saw with her troop of African lions. 
I dream about those lions, and see them leaping over 
her head. What a grand sight that was! But the 
public is fooled. I read somewhere that she trained 
those lions by love. I don’t believe it. I saw her use 
a whip and a steel spear. Moreover, I saw many 
things that escaped most observers — how she entered 
the cage, how she maneuvered among them, how she 
kept a compelling gaze on them! It was an admi- 
rable, a great piece of work. Maybe she loves those 
huge yellow brutes, but her life was in danger every 
moment while she was in that cage, and she knew 
it. Some day, one of her pets — likely the King of 
Beasts she pets the most — ^will rise up and kill her. 
That is as certain as death.” 


108 


CHAPTER VI 


THE WHITE MUSTANG 

OR thirty miles down Nail Canon we marked, 



in every dusty trail and sandy wash, the small. 


oval, sharply defined tracks of the White 
Mustang and his band. 

The canon had been well named. It was long, 
straight and square sided; its bare walls glared steel- 
gray in the sun, smooth, glistening surfaces that had 
been polished by wind and water. No weathered 
heaps of shale, no crumbled piles of stone obstructed 
its level floor. And, softly toning its drab austerity, 
here grew the white sage, waving in the breeze, the 
Indian Paint Brush, with vivid vermilion flower, 
and patches of fresh, green grass. 

“ The White King, as we Arizona wild-hoss wran- 
glers calls this mustang, is mighty pertickler about 
j his feed, an’ he ranged along here last night, easy 
like, browsin’ on this white sage,” said Stewart. 
Infected by our intense interest in the famous mus- 
tang, and ruffled slightly by Jones’s manifest surprise 
and contempt that no one had captured him, Stewart 
had volunteered to guide us. “ Never knowed him 


109 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

to run in this way fer water; fact is, never knowed 
Nail Canon hed a fork. It splits down here, but 
you’d think it was only a crack in the wall. An’ thet 
cunnin’ mustang hes been foolin’ us fer years about 
this water-hole.” 

The fork of Nail Canon, which Stewart had 
decided we were in, had been accidentally discovered 
by Frank, who, in search of our horses one morning, 
had crossed a ridge, to come suddenly upon the blind, 
box-like head of the canon. Stewart knew the lay 
of the ridges and run of the canons as well as any 
man could know a country where, seemingly, every 
rod was ridged and bisected, and he was of the 
opinion that we had stumbled upon one of the White 
Mustang’s secret passages, by which he had so often 
eluded his pursuers. 

Hard riding had been the order of the day, but 
still we covered ten more miles by sundown. The 
canon apparently closed in on us, so camp was made 
for the night. The horses were staked out, and 
supper made ready while the shadows were dropping; 
and when darkness settled thick over us, we lay under 
our blankets. 

Morning disclosed the White Mustang’s secret 
passage. It was a narrow cleft, splitting the canon 
wall, rough, uneven, tortuous and choked with 
fallen rocks — no more than a wonderful crack in 
110 


The White Mustang 

solid stone, opening into another canon. Above us 
the sky seemed a winding, flowing stream of blue. 
The walls were so close in places that a horse with 
pack would have been blocked, and a rider had to 
pull his legs up over the saddle. On the far side, 
the passage fell very suddenly for several hundred 
feet to the floor of the other canon. No hunter could 
have seen it, or suspected it from that side. 

“ This is Grand Canon country, an’ nobody knows 
what he’s goin’ to find,” was Frank’s comment. 

“ Now we’re in Nail Canon proper,” said Stewart, 
an’ I know my bearin’s. I can climb out a mile 
below an’ cut across to Kanab Canon, an’ slip up 
into Nail Canon agin, ahead of the mustangs, an’ 
drive ’em up. I can’t miss ’em, fer Kanab Canon 
is impassable down a little ways. The mustangs will 
hev to run this way. So all you need do is go below 
the break, where I climb out, an’ wait. You’re sure 
goin’ to get a look at the White Mustang. But 
wait. Don’t expect him before noon, an’ after thet, 
any time till he comes. Mebbe it’ll be a couple of 
days, so keep a good watch.” 

Then taking our man Lawson, with blankets and a 
knapsack of food, Stewart rode off down the canon. 

We were early on the march. As we proceeded 
the canon lost its regularity and smoothness ; it became 
crooked as a rail fence, narrower, higher, rugged and 
111 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

broken. Pinnacled cliffs, cracked and leaning, men- 
aced us from above. Mountains of ruined wall had 
tumbled into fragments. 

It seemed that Jones, after much survey of different 
corners, angles and points in the canon floor, chose 
his position with much greater care than appeared 
necessary for the ultimate success of our venture — 
which was simply to see the White Mustang, and if 
good fortune attended us, to snap some photographs 
of this wild king of horses. It flashed over me that, 
with his ruling passion strong within him, our leader 
was laying some kind of trap for that mustang, was 
indeed bent on his capture. 

Wallace, Frank and Jim were stationed at a point 
below the break where Stewart had evidently gone up 
and out. How a horse could have climbed that 
streaky white slide was a mystery. Jones’s instruc- 
tions to the men were to wait until the mustangs were 
close upon them, and then yell and shout and show 
themselves. 

He took me to a jutting corner of cliff, which hid 
us from the others, and here he exercised still more 
care in scrutinizing the lay of the ground. A wash 
from ten to fifteen feet wide, and as deep, ran through 
the canon in a somewhat meandering course. At the 
corner which consumed so much of his attention, the 
dry ditch ran along the cliff wall about fifty feet out; 

112 



Oak Spring was pleasantly situated in a grove of oaks and pinons.** 



The wild horses thundered on 



The White Mustang 


between it and the wall was good level ground; on 
the other side huge rocks and shale made it hum- 
mocky, practically impassable for a horse. It was 
> plain the mustangs, on their way up, would choose 
the inside of the wash ; and here in the middle of the 
passage, just round the jutting corner, Jones tied our 
horses to good, strong bushes. His next act was 
significant. He threw out his lasso and, dragging 
every crook out of it, carefully recoiled it, and hung 
it loose over the pommel of his saddle. 

“ The White Mustang may be yours before dark,” 
he said with the smile that came so seldom. “ Now 
I placed our horses there for two reasons. The mus- 
tangs won't see them till they’re right on them. Then 
you’ll see a sight and have a chance for a great pic- 
ture. They will halt; the stallion will prance, whistle 
and snort for a fight, and then they’ll see the saddles 
and be off. We’ll hide across the wash, down a little 
way, and at the right time we’ll shout and yell to 
drive them up.” 

By piling sagebrush round a stone, we made a 
, hiding-place. Jones was extremely cautious to 
arrange the bunches in natural positions. “ A Rocky 
Mountain Big Horn is the only four-footed beast,” 
he said, “ that has a better eye than a wild horse. 
A cougar has an eye, too ; he’s used to lying high up 
on the cliffs and looking down for his quarry so as to 
113 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

■— .-ij— ■■■' !■ 11 i— — — — » 

stalk it at night ; but even a cougar has to take second 
to a mustang when it comes to sight.” 

The hours passed slowly. The sun baked us ; the 
stones were too hot to touch; flies buzzed behind our 
ears; tarantulas peeped at us from holes. The after- 
noon slowly waned. 

At dark we returned to where we had left Wallace 
and the cowboys. Frank had solved the problem of 
water supply, for he had found a little spring trickling 
, from a cliff, which, by skillful management, produced 
enough drink for the horses. Wc had packed our 
water for camp use. 

“ You take the first watch to-night,” said Jones 
to me after supper. “ The mustangs might try to 
slip by our fire in the night and we must keep a watch 
for them. Call Wallace when your time’s up. Now, 
fellows, roll in.” 

When the pink of dawn was shading white, we 
were at our posts. A long, hot day — interminably 
long, deadening to the keenest interest — passed, and 
still no mustangs came. We slept and watched again, 
in the grateful cool of night, till the third day broke. 

The hours passed; the cool breeze changed to hot; 
the sun blazed over the canon wall; the stones 
scorched; the flies buzzed. I fell asleep in the scant 
shade of the sage bushes and awoke, stifled and moist. 
The old plainsman, never weary, leaned with his back 

114 


The White Mustang 

against a stone and watched, with narrow gaze, the 
canon below. The steely walls hurt my eyes; the sky 
was like hot copper. Though nearly wild with heat 
and aching bones and muscles and the long hours of 
wait — wait — ^wait, I was ashamed to complain, for 
there sat the old man, still and silent. I routed out 
a hairy tarantula from under a stone and teased him 
into a frenzy with my stick, and tried to get up a 
fight between him and a scallop-backed horned-toad 
that blinked wonderingly at me. Then I espied a 
green lizard on a stone. The beautiful reptile was 
about a foot in length, bright green, dotted with 
red, and he had diamonds for eyes. Nearby a purple 
flower blossomed, delicate and pale, with a bee suck- 
ing at its golden heart. I observed then that the 
lizard had his jewel eyes upon the bee; he slipped to 
the edge of the stone, flicked out a long, red tongue, 
and tore the insect from its honeyed perch. Here 
were beauty, life and death; and I had been weary 
for something to look at, to think about, to distract 
me from the wearisome wait ! 

“ Listen ! ” broke in Jones’s sharp voice. His 
neck was stretched, his eyes were closed, his ear was 
turned to the wind. 

With thrilling, reawakened eagerness, I strained 
my hearing. I caught a faint sound, then lost it 

“ Put your ear to the ground,” said Jones. 

115 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

I followed his advice, and detected the rhythmic 
beat of galloping horses. 

“ The mustangs are coming, sure as you’re born I ” 
exclaimed Jones. 

“There! Sec the cloud of dust!” cried he a 
minute later. 

In the first bend of the canon below, a splintered 
ruin of rock now lay under a rolling cloud of dust. 
A white flash appeared, a line of bobbing black 
objects, and more dust; then with a sharp pounding 
of hoofs, into clear vision shot a dense black band 
of mustangs, and well in front swung the White 
King. 

“ Look! Look! I never saw the beat of that — 
never in my born days ! ” cried Jones. “ How they 
move ! yet that white fellow isn’t half-stretched out. 
Get your picture before they pass. You’ll never see 
the beat of that.” 

With long manes and tails flying, the mustangs 
came on apace and passed us in a trampling roar, 
the white stallion in the front. Suddenly a shrill, 
whistling blast, unlike any sound I had ever heard, 
made the canon fairly ring. The white stallion 
plunged back, and his band closed in behind him. 
He had seen our saddle horses. Then trembling, 
whinnying, and with arched neck and high-poised 
head, bespeaking his mettle, he advanced a few paces, 


The White Mustang 

and again whistled his shrill note of defiance. Pure 
creamy white he was, and built like a racer. He 
pranced, struck his hoofs hard and cavorted; then, 
taking sudden fright, he wheeled. 

It was then, when the mustangs were pivoting, i 
with the white in the lead, that Jones jumped upon the 
stone, fired his pistol and roared with all his strength. 
Taking his cue, I did likewise. The band huddled 
back again, uncertain and frightened, then broke up 
the canon. 

Jones jumped the ditch with surprising agility, 
and I followed close at his heels. When we reached 
our plunging horses, he shouted: “ Mount, and hold 
this passage. Keep close In by that big stone at the 
turn so they can’t run you down, or stampede you. 
If they head your way, scare them back.” 

Satan quivered, and when I mounted, reared and 
plunged. I had to, hold him In hard, for he was 
eager to run. At the cliff wall I was at some pains 
to check him. He kept champing his bit and stamp- 
ing his feet. 

From my post I could see the mustangs flying 
before a cloud of dust. Jones was turning In his 
horse behind a large rock in the middle of the canon, 
where he evidently Intended to hide. Presently suc- 
cessive yells and shots from our comrades blended In 
a roar which the narrow box-canon augmented and 
117 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


echoed from wall to wall. High the White Mus- 
tang reared, and above the roar whistled his snort 
of furious terror. His band wheeled with him and 
charged back, their hoofs ringing like hammers on 
iron. 

The crafty old buffalo-hunter had hemmed the 
mustangs in a circle and had left himself free in 
the center. It was a wily trick, born of his quick 
mind and experienced eye. 

The stallion, closely crowded by his followers, 
moved swiftly. I saw that he must pass near the 
stone. Thundering, crashing, the horses came on. 
Away beyond them I saw Frank and Wallace. Then 
Jones yelled to me : “ Open up ! open up ! ” 

I turned Satan into the middle of the narrow pas- 
sage, screaming at the top of my voice and discharg- 
ing my revolver rapidly. 

But the wild horses thundered on. Jones saw 
that they would not now be balked, and he spurred 
his bay directly in their path. The big horse, coura- 
geous as his intrepid master, dove forward. 

Then followed confusion for me. The pound of 
hoofs, the snorts, a screaming neigh that was fright- 
ful, the mad stampede of the mustangs with a whir- 
ling cloud of dust, bewildered and frightened me so 
that I lost sight of Jones. Danger threatened and 
passed me almost before I was aware of it. Out of 
118 


The White Mustang 


the dust a mass of tossing manes, foam-flecked black 
horses, wild eyes and lifting hoofs rushed at me. 
Satan, with a presence of mind that shamed mine, 
leaped back and hugged the wall. My eyes were 
blinded by dust ; the smell of dust choked me. I felt 
a strong rush of wind and a mustang grazed my 
stirrup. Then they had passed, on the wings of the 
dust-laden breeze. 

But not all, for I saw that Jones had. In some inex- 
plicable manner, cut the White Mustang and two of 
his blacks out of the band. He had turned them bade 
again and was pursuing them. The bay he rode 
had never before appeared to much advantage, and 
now, with his long, lean, powerful body In splendid 
action, imbued with the relentless will of his rider, 
what a picture he presented! How he did run! 
With all that, the White Mustang made him look 
dingy and slow. Nevertheless, It was a critical time 
in the wild career of that king of horses. He had 
been penned In a space two hundred by five hundred 
yards, half of which was separated from him by a 
wide ditch, a yawning chasm that he had refused; 
and behind him, always keeping on the inside, 
wheeled the yelling hunter, who savagely spurred his 
bay and whirled a deadly lasso. He had been cut 
off and surrounded ; the very nature of the rocks and' 
trails of the canon threatened to end his freedom or 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


his life. Certain it was he preferred to end the 
latter, for he risked death from the rocks as he went 
over them in long leaps. 

Jones could have roped either of the two blacks, 
but he hardly noticed them. Covered with dust and 
splotches of foam, they took their advantage, turned 
on the circle toward the passage way and galloped 
by me out of sight. Again Wallace, Frank and Jim 
let out strings of yells and volleys. The chase was 
narrowing down. Trapped, the White Mustang 
King had no chance. What a grand spirit he 
showed! Frenzied as I was with excitement, the 
thought occurred to me that this was an unfair battle, 
that I ought to stand aside and let him pass. But 
the blood and lust of primitive instinct held me fast. 
IJones, keeping back, met his every turn. Yet always 
with lithe and beautiful stride the stallion kept out 
of reach of the whirling lariat. 

“ Close in! ” yelled Jones, and his voice, powerful 
with a note of triumph, bespoke the knell of the 
king’s freedom. 

I The trap closed in. Back and forth at the upper 
end the White Mustang worked ; then rendered 
'desperate by the closing in, he circled round nearer 
to me. Fire shone in his wild eyes. The wily Jones 
was not to be outwitted; he kept in the middle, 
always on the move, and he yelled to me to open up. 

120 


The White Mustang 

I lost my voice again, and fired my last shot. Then 
the White IVIustang burst into a dash of daring, 
despairing speed. It was his last magnificent effort. 
Straight for the wash at the upper end he pointed 
his racy, spirited head, and his white legs stretched 
far apart, twinkled and stretched again. Jones gal- 
loped to cut him off, and the yells he emitted were 
demoniacal. It was a long, straight race for the 
mustang, a short curve for the bay. 

That the white stallion gained was as sure as his 
resolve to elude capture, and he never swerved a 
foot from his course. Jones might have headed him, 
but manifestly he wanted to ride with him, as well as 
to meet him, so in case the lasso went true, a terrible 
shock might be averted. 

Up went Jones’s arm as the space shortened, and 
the lasso ringed his head. Out it shot, lengthened 
like a yellow, striking snake, and fell just short of 
the flying white tail. 

The White Mustang, fulfilling his purpose in a 
last heroic display of power, sailed into the air, up 
and up, and over the wide wash like a white streak. 
Free ! the dust rolled in a cloud from under his hoofs, ^ 
and he vanished. 

Jones’s superb horse, crashing down on his 
haunches, just escaped sliding into the hole. 

I awoke to the realization that Satan had carried 
121 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

me, In pursuit of the thrilling chase, all the way 
across the circle without my knowing It. 

Jones calmly wiped the sweat from his face, calmly 
colled his lasso, and calmly remarked: 

“ In trying to capture wild animals a man must 
never be too sure. Now what I thought my strong 
point was my weak point — the wash. I made sure 
no horse could ever jump that hole.’* 


122 


CHAPTER VII 


SNAKE GULCH 

N ot far from the scene of our adventures 
with the White Streak, as we facetiously 
and appreciatively named the mustang, a 
deep, flat cave indented the canon wall. By reason of 
its sandy floor and close proximity to Frank’s tric- 
kling spring, we decided to camp in it. About dark, 
Lawson and Stewart straggled in on spent horses, 
and found awaiting them a bright fire, a hot supper 
and cheery comrades. 

“Did yu fellars git to see him?” was the tall 
ranger’s first question. 

“ Did we get to see him? ” echoed five lusty voices 
as one. “We did!” 

It was after Frank, in his plain, blunt speech, had 
told of our experience, that the long Arizonian gazed i 
fixedly at Jones. 

“ Did yu acktully tech the hair of thet mustang 
with a rope?” 

In all his days Jones never had a greater compli- 
ment. By way of reply, he moved his big hand to a 
button of his coat, and, fumbling over it, unwound 
123 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


a string of long, white hairs, then said : “ I pulled 
these out of his tail with my lasso ; it missed his left 
hind hoof about six inches.” 

There were six of the hairs, pure, glistening white, 
and over three feet long. Stewart examined them 
in expressive silence, then passed them along; and 
when they reached me, they stayed. 

The cave, lighted up by a blazing fire, appeared to 
me a forbidding, uncanny place. Small, peculiar 
round holes, and dark cracks, suggestive of hidden 
vermin, gave me a creepy feeling; and although not 
over-sensitive on the subject of crawling, creeping 
things, I voiced my disgust. 

“ Say, I don’t like the idea of sleeping in this hole. 
I’ll bet it’s full of spiders, snakes and centipedes and 
other poisonous things.” 

Whatever there was in my inoffensive declaration 
to rouse the usually slumbering humor of the Ari- 
zonians, and the thinly veiled ridicule of Colonel 
Jones, and a mixture of both in my once loyal Cali- 
fornia friend, I am not prepared to state. Maybe 
it was the dry, sweet, cool air of Nail Canon; maybe 
my suggestion awoke ticklish associations that worked 
themselves off thus; maybe it was the first instance 
of my committing myself to a breach of camp 
etiquette. Be that as it may, my Innocently expressed 
sentiment gave rise to bewildering dissertations on 

124 


Snake Gulch 


entomology, and riiost remarkable and startling tales 
from first-hand experience. 

‘‘ Like as not,” began Frank in matter-of-fact tone. 
“ Them’s tarantuler holes all right. An’ scorpions, 
centipedes an’ rattlers always rustle with tarantulers. 
But we never mind them — not us fellers! We’re 
used to sleepin’ with them. Why, I often wake up 
in the night to see a big tarantuler on my chest, an’ 
see him wink. Ain’t thet so, Jim? ” 

“ Shore as hell,” drawled faithful, slow Jim. 

“ Reminds me how fatal the bite of a centipede 
is,” took up Colonel Jones, complacently. “ Once I 
was sitting in camp with a hunter, who suddenly 
hissed out: ‘Jones, for God’s sake don’t budge! 
There’s a centipede on your arm ! ’ He pulled his 
Colt, and shot the blamed centipede off as clean as 
a whistle. But the bullet hit a steer in the leg; and 
would you believe it, the bullet carried so much 
poison that in less than two hours the steer died of 
blood poisoning. Centipedes are so poisonous they 
leave a blue trail on flesh just by crawling over it. 
Look there ! ” 

He bared his arm, and there on the brown-corded 
flesh was a blue trail of something, that was certain. 
It might have been made by a centipede. 

“ This is a likely place for them,” put in Wallace, 
emitting a volume of smoke and gazing round the 
125 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

cave walls with the eye of a connoisseur. “ My 
archaeological pursuits have given me great experi- 
ence with centipedes, as you may imagine, considering 
how many old tombs, caves and cliff-dwellings I have 
explored. This Algonkian rock is about the right 
stratum for centipedes to dig in. They dig somewhat 
after the manner of the fluviatile long-tailed decapod 
crustaceans, of the genera Thoracostraca, the com- 
mon crawfish, you know. From that, of course, you 
can imagine, if a centipede can bite rock, what a 
biter he is.” 

I began to grow weak, and did not wonder to see 
Jim’s long pipe fall from his lips. Frank looked 
queer around the gills, so to speak, but the gaunt 
Stewart never batted an eye. 

“ I camped here two years ago,” he said, “ an’ 
the cave was alive with rock-rats, mice, snakes, 
horned-toads, lizards an’ a big Gila monster, besides 
bugs, scorpions, rattlers, an’ as fer tarantulers an’ 
centipedes — say! I couldn’t sleep fer the noise they 
made fightin’.” 

“ I seen the same,” concluded Lawson, as noncha- 
lant as a wild-horse wrangler well could be. “ An’ 
as fer me, now I alius lays perfickly still when the 
centipedes an’ tarantulers begin to drop from their 
holes In the roof, same as them holes up there. An’ 
when they light on me, I never move, 

126 


nor even 


Snake Gulch 


breathe fer about five minutes. Then they take a 
notion Tm dead an’ crawl off. But sure, if I’d 
breathed I’d been a goner! ” 

All of this was playfully intended for the extinc- 
tion of an unoffending and impressionable tenderfoot. 

With an admiring glance at my tormentors, I 
rolled out my sleeping-bag and crawled into it, vow- 
ing I would remain there even if devil-fish, armed 
with pikes, invaded our cave. 

Late in the night I awoke. The bottom of the 
canon and the outer floor of our cave lay bathed in 
white, clear moonlight. A dense, gloomy black 
shadow veiled the opposite canon wall. High up 
the pinnacles and turrets pointed toward a resplen- 
dent moon. It was a weird, wonderful scene of 
beauty entrancing, of breathless, dreaming silence 
that seemed not of life. Then a hoot-owl lamented 
dismally, his call fitting the scene and the dead still- 
ness ; the echoes resounded from cliff to cliff, strangely 
mocking and hollow, at last reverberating low and 
mournful in the distance. 

How long I lay there enraptured with the beauty 
of light and mystery of shade, thrilling at the lone- 
some lament of the owl, I have no means to tell ; but 
I was awakened from my trance by the touch of 
something crawling over me. Promptly I raised my 
head. The cave was as light as day. There, sitting 
127 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

sociably on my sleeping-bag was a great black taran- 
tula, as large as my hand. 

For one still moment, notwithstanding my con- 
tempt for Lawson’s advice, I certainly acted upon it 
to the letter. If ever I was quiet, and if ever I was 
cold, the time was then. My companions snored in 
blissful ignorance of my plight. Slight rustling 
sounds attracted my wary gaze from the old black 
sentinel on my knee. I saw other black spiders run- 
ning to and fro on the silver, sandy floor. A giant, 
as large as a soft-shell crab, seemed to be meditating 
an assault upon Jones’s ear. Another, grizzled and 
shiny with age or moonbeams — I could not tell which 
— ^pushed long, tentative feelers into Wallace’s cap. 
I saw black spots darting over the roof. It was not 
a dream ; the cave was alive with tarantulas ! 

Not improbably my strong impression that the 
spider on my knee deliberately winked at me was the 
result of memory, enlivening imagination. But it 
sufficed to bring to mind, in one rapid, consoling 
flash, the irrevocable law of destiny — that the deeds 
of the wicked return unto them again. 

I slipped back into my sleeping-bag, with a keen 
consciousness of its nature, and carefully pulled the 
flap in place, which almost hermetically sealed me up. 

“ Hey I Jones! Wallace! Frank! Jim! ” I yelled, 
from the depths of my safe refuge. 

128 


Snake Gulch 


Wondering cries gave me glad assurance that they 
had awakened from their dreams. 

“ The cave’s alive with tarantulas! ” I cried, try- 
ing to hide my unholy glee. 

“ I’ll be durned if it ain’t! ” ejaculated Frank. 

“ Shore it beats hell ! ” added Jim, with a shake 
of his blanket. 

“ Look out, Jones, there’s one on your pillow! ” 
shouted Wallace. 

Whack ! A sharp blow proclaimed the opening of 
hostilities. 

Memory stamped indelibly every word of that 
incident; but innate delicacy prevents the repetition 
of all save the old warrior’s concluding remarks: 

“ I ! ! place I was ever in! Tarantulas by the 

million — centipedes, scorpions, bats! Rattlesnakes, 
too. I’ll swear. Look out, Wallace! there, under 
your blanket ! ” 

From the shuffling sounds which wafted sweetly 
into my bed, I gathered that my long friend from 
California must have gone through motions credit- 
able to a contortionist. An ensuing explosion from 
Jones proclaimed to the listening world that Wallace 
had thrown a tarantula upon him. Further fearful 
language suggested the thought that Colonel Jones 
had passed on the inquisitive spider to Frank. The 
reception accorded the unfortunate tarantula, no 
129 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

doubt scared out of its wits, began with a wild yell 
from Frank and ended in pandemonium. 

While the confusion kept up, with whacks and 
blows and threshing about, with language such as 
never before had disgraced a group of old campers, » 
I choked with rapture, and reveled in the sweetness 
of revenge. 

When quiet reigned once more in the black and 
white canon, only one sleeper lay on the moon- 
silvered sand of the cave. 

At dawn, when I opened sleepy eyes, Frank, Jim, 
Stewart and Lawson had departed, as pre-arranged, 
with the outfit, leaving the horses belonging to us 
and rations for the day. Wallace and I wanted to 
climb the divide at the break, and go home by way 
of Snake Gulch, and the Colonel acquiesced with the 
remark that his sixty-three years had taught him 
there was much to see in the world. Coming to 
undertake it, we found the climb — except for a slide 
of weathered rock — no great task, and we accom- 
plished it in half an hour, with breath to spare and 
no mishap to horses. 

But descending into Snake Gulch, which was only ^ 
a mile across the sparsely cedared ridge, proved to be 
tedious labor. By virtue of Satan’s patience and 
skill, I forged ahead; which advantage, however, 
meant more risk for me because of the stones set in 
130 


Snake Gulch 


motion above. They rolled and bumped and cut into 
me, and I sustained many a bruise trying to protect 
the sinewy slender legs of my horse. The descent 
ended without serious mishap. 

Snake Gulch had a character and sublimity which 
cast Nail Canon into the obscurity of forgetfulness. 
The great contrast lay in the diversity of structure. 
The rock was bright red, with parapet of yellow, that 
leaned, heaved, bulged outward. These emblazoned 
cliff walls, two thousand feet high, were cracked 
from turret to base ; they bowled out at such an angle 
that we were afraid to ride under them. Mountains 
of yellow rock hung balanced, ready to tumble down 
at the first angry breath of the gods. We rode 
among carved stones, pillars, obelisks and sculptured 
ruined walls of a fallen Babylon. Slides reaching all 
the way across and far up the canon wall obstructed 
our passage. On every stone silent green lizards 
sunned themselves, gliding swiftly as we came near 
to their marble homes. 

We came into a region of wind-worn caves, of all 
sizes and shapes, high and low on the cliffs; but 
strange to say, only on the north side of the canon 
they appeared with dark mouths open and uninviting. 
One, vast and deep, though far off, menaced us as 
might the cave of a tawny-maned king of beasts; yet 
it impelled, fascinated and drew us on. 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


“ It’s a long, hard climb,” said Wallace to the 
Colonel, as we dismounted. 

“ Boys, I’m with you,” came the reply. And he 
was with us all the way, as we clambered over the 
immense blocks and threaded a passage between them 
and pulled weary legs up, one after the other. So 
steep lay the jumble of cliff fragments that we lost 
sight of the cave long before we got near it. Sud- 
denly we rounded a stone, to halt and gasp at the 
thing looming before us. 

The dark portal of death or hell might have 
yawned there. A gloomy hole, large enough to 
admit a church, had been hollowed in the cliff by 
ages of nature’s chiseling. 

“ Vast sepulcher of Time’s past, give up thy 
dead! ” cried Wallace, solemnly. 

“ Oh ! dark Stygian cave forlorn I ” quoted I, as 
feelingly as my friend. 

Jones hauled us down from the clouds. 

“ Now, I wonder what kind of a prehistoric animal 
holed in here,” said he. 

Forever the one absorbing interest! If he realized 
the sublimity of this place, he did not show it. 

The floor of the cave ascended from the very 
threshold. Stony ridges circled from wall to wall. 
We climbed till we were two hundred feet from the 
opening, yet we were not half-way to the dome. 

132 



Snake gulch had character and sublimity. 






The art of a prehistoric race 






Snake Ghilch 


Our horses, browsing in the sage far below, looked 
like ants. So steep did the ascent become that we 
desisted; for if one of us had slipped on the smooth 
incline, the result would have been terrible. Our 
voices rang clear and hollow from the walls. We 
were so high that the sky was blotted out by the 
overhanging square, cornice-like top of the door; 
and the light was weird, dim, shadowy, opaque. It 
was a gray tomb. 

“ Waa-hoo ! ” yelled Jones with all the power of 
his wide, leather lungs. 

Thousands of devilish voices rushed at us, seem- 
ingly on puffs of wind. Mocking, deep echoes bel- 
lowed from the ebon shades at the back of the cave, 
and the walls, taking them up, hurled them on again 
in fiendish concatenation. 

We did not again break the silence of that tomb, 
where the spirits of ages lay in dusty shrouds; and 
we crawled down as if we had invaded a sanctuary 
and invoked the wrath of the gods. 

We all proposed names: Montezuma’s Amphithe- 
ater being the only rival of Jones’s selection. Echo 
Cave, which we finally chose. 

Mounting our horses again, we made twenty miles 
of Snake Gulch by noon, when we rested for lunch. 
All the way up we had played the boy’s game of spy- 
ing for sights, with the honors about even. It was a 
133 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

question if Snake Gulch ever before had such a raking 
over. Despite its name, however, we discovered no 
snakes. 

From the sandy niche of a cliff where we lunched 
Wallace espied a tomb, and heralded his discovery 
with a victorious whoop. Digging in old ruins 
roused in him much the same spirit that digging in 
old books roused in me. Before we reached him, he 
had a big bowie-knife buried deep in the red, sandy 
floor of the tomb. 

This one-time sealed house of the dead had been 
constructed of small stones, held together by a 
cement, the nature of which, Wallace explained, had 
never become clear to civilization. It was red in 
color and hard as flint, harder than the rocks it 
glued together. The tomb was half-round in shape, 
and its floor was a projecting shelf of cliff rock. 
Wallace unearthed bits of pottery, bone and finely 
braided rope, all of which, to our great disappoint- 
ment, crumbled to dust in our fingers. In the case 
of the rope, Wallace assured us, this was a sign of 
remarkable antiquity. 

In the next mile we traversed, v/e found dozens of 
these old cells, all demolished except a few feet of the 
walls, all despoiled of their one-time possessions. 
Wallace thought these depredations were due to 
Indians of our own time. Suddenly we came upon 
134 


Snake Ghilch 


Jones, standing under a cliff, with his neck craned to 
a desperate angle. 

“Now, what’s that?” demanded he, pointing 
upward. 

High on the cliff wall appeared a small, round 
protuberance. It was of the unmistakably red color 
of the other tombs; and Wallace, more excited than 
he had been in the cougar chase, said it was a sepul- 
cher, and he believed it had never been opened. 

From an elevated point of rock, as high up as I 
could well climb, I decided both questions with my 
glass. The tomb resembled nothing so much as a 
mud-wasp’s nest, high on a barn wall. The fact 
that it had never been broken open quite carried 
Wallace away with enthusiasm. 

“ This is no mean discovery, let me tell you that,” 
he declared. “ I am familiar with the Aztec, Toltec 
and Pueblo ruins, and here I find no similarity. Be- 
sides, we are out of their latitude. An ancient race 
of people — ^very ancient indeed — ^lived in this canon. 
How long ago, it is impossible to tell.” 

“ They must have been birds,” said the practical 
Jones. “Now, how’d that tomb ever get there? 
Look at it, will you ? ” 

As near as we could ascertain, it was three hundred 
feet from the ground below, five hundred from the 
rim wall above, and could not possibly have been 
135 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

approached from the top. Moreover, the cliff wall 
was as smooth as a wall of human make. 

“ There’s another one,” called out Jones. 

“ Yes, and I see another; no doubt there are many 
of them,” replied Wallace. “ In my mind, only one 
thing possible accounts for their position. You 
observe they appear to be about level with each 
other. Well, once the canon floor ran along that 
line, and In the ages gone by it has lowered, washed 
away by the rains.” 

This conception staggered us, but It was the only 
one conceivable. No doubt we all thought at the 
same time of the little rainfall in that arid section of 
Arizona. 

“ How many years? ” queried Jones. 

“Years! What are years?” said Wallace. 
“ Thousands of years, ages have passed since the 
race who built these tombs lived.” 

Some persuasion was necessary to drag our scien- 
tific friend from the spot, where obviously helpless 
to do anything else, he stood and gazed longingly at 
the Isolated tombs. The canon widened as we pro- 
ceeded; and hundreds of points that Invited Inspec- 
tion, such as overhanging shelves of rock, dark 
fissures, caverns and ruins had to be passed by, for 
lack of time. 

Still, a more Interesting and Important discovery 

13G 


Snake Chilch 


was to come, and the pleasure and honor of it fell 
to me. My eyes were sharp and peculiarly far- 
sighted — the Indian sight, Jones assured me; and I 
kept them searching the walls in such places as my 
companions overlooked. Presently, under a large, 
bulging bluff, I saw a dark spot, which took the shape 
of a figure. This figure, I recollected, had been pre- 
sented to my sight more than once, and now it 
stopped me. The hard climb up the slippery stones 
was fatiguing, but I did not hesitate, for I was 
determined to know. Once upon the ledge, I let out 
a yell that quickly set my companions in my direction. 
The figure I had seen was a dark, red devil, a painted 
image, rude, unspeakably wild, crudely executed, but 
painted by the hand of man. The whole surface of 
the cliff wall bore figures of all shapes — men, 
animals, birds and strange devices, some in red paint, 
mostly in yellow. Some showed the wear of time; 
others were clear and sharp. 

Wallace puffed up to me, but he had wind enough 
left for another whoop. Jones puffed up also, and 
seeing the first thing a rude sketch of what might 
have been a deer or a buffalo, he commented thus: 
“ Darn me if I ever saw an animal like that ! Boys, 
this is a find, sure as you’re born. Because not even 
the Piutes ever spoke of these figures. I doubt if 
they know they’re here. And the cowboys and 
137 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

wranglers, what few ever get by here in a hundred 
years, never saw these things. Beats anything I ever 
saw on the Mackenzie, or anywhere else.” 

The meaning of some devices was as mystical as 
that of others was clear. Two blood-red figures of 
men, the larger dragging the smaller by the hair, 
while he waved aloft a blood-red hatchet or club, 
left little to conjecture. Here was the old battle of 
men, as old as life. Another group, two figures of 
which resembled the foregoing in form and action, 
battling over a prostrate form rudely feminine in 
outline, attested to an age when men were as suscep- 
tible as they are in modern times, but more forceful 
and original. An odd yellow Indian waved aloft a 
red hand, which striking picture suggested the 
idea that he was an ancient Macbeth, listening to 
the knocking at the gate. There was a character 
representing a great chief, before whom many figures 
lay prostrate, evidently slain or subjugated. Large 
red paintings, in the shape of bats, occupied promi- 
nent positions, and must have represented gods or 
devils. Armies of marching men told of that blight 
of nations old or young — ^war. These, and birds 
unnamable, and beasts unclassable, with dots and 
marks and hieroglyphics, recorded the history of a 
bygone people. Symbols they were of an era that 
had gone into the dim past, leaving only these marks, 

138 


Chap, vn 



Aa/VVvV\ 


** Symbols recording the history of a bygone people.” 



Snake Gulch 


forever unintelligible; yet while they stood, century 
after century, ineffaceable, reminders of the glory, 
the mystery, the sadness of life. 

“How could paint of any kind last so long?” 
asked Jones, shaking his head doubtfully. 

“ That is the unsolvable mystery,” returned Wal- 
lace. “ But the records are there. I am absolutely 
sure the paintings are at least a thousand years old. 
I have never seen any tombs or paintings similar to 
them. Snake Gulch is a find, and I shall some day 
study its wonders.” 

Sundown caught us within sight of Oak Spring, 
and we soon trotted into camp to the welcoming 
chorus of the hounds. Frank and the others had 
reached the cabin some hours before. Supper was 
steaming on the hot coals with a delicious fragrance. 

Then came the pleasantest time of the day, after a 
long chase or jaunt — the silent moments, watching 
the glowing embers of the fire ; the speaking moments 
when a red-blooded story rang clear and true; the 
twilight moments, when the wood-smoke smelled 
sweet. 

Jones seemed unusually thoughtful. I had learned 
that this preoccupation in him meant the stirring of 
old associations, and I waited silently. By and by 
Lawson snored mildly in a corner; Jim and Frank 
crawled into their blankets, and all was still. Wal- 
139 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

lace smoked his Indian pipe and hunted in firelit 
dreams. 

“ Boys,” said our leader finally, “ somehow the 
echoes dying away in that cave reminded me of the 
mourn of the big white wolves in the Barren Lands.” 

Wallace puffed huge clouds of white smoke, and 
I waited, knowing that I was to hear at last the story 
of the Colonel’s great adventure in the Northland. 


149 


CHAPTER VIII 


NAZA I NAZA ! NAZA I 

I T was a waiting day at Fort Chippewayan. The 
lonesome, far-northern Hudson’s Bay Trading 
Post seldom saw such life. Tepees dotted the 
banks of the Slave River and lines of blanketed 
Indians paraded its shores. Near the boat landing 
a group of chiefs, grotesque in semi-barbaric, semi- 
civilized splendor, but black-browed, austere-eyed, 
stood in savage dignity with folded arms and high- 
held heads. Lounging on the grassy bank were white 
men, traders, trappers and officials of the post. 

All eyes were on the distant curve of the river 
where, as it lost itself in a fine-fringed bend of dark 
green, white-glinting waves danced and fluttered. A 
June sky lay blue in the majestic stream; ragged, 
spear-topped, dense green trees massed down to the 
water; beyond rose bold, bald-knobbed hills, in 
remote purple relief. 

A long Indian arm stretched south. The waiting 
eyes discerned a black speck on the green, and 
watched it grow. A flatboat, with a man standing 
to the oars, bore down swiftly. 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


Not a red hand, nor a white one, offered to help 
the voyager in the difficult landing. The oblong, 
clumsy, heavily laden boat surged with the current 
and passed the dock despite the boatman’s efforts. 
He swung his craft in below upon a bar and roped , 
it fast to a tree. The Indians crowded above him on 
the bank. The boatman raised his powerful form 
erect, lifted a bronzed face which seemed set in 
craggy hardness, and cast from narrow eyes a keen, 
cool glance on those above. The silvery gleam in 
his fair hair told of years. 

Silence, impressive as it was ominous, broke only 
to the rattle of camping paraphernalia, which the 
voyager threw to a level, grassy bench on the bank. 
Evidently this unwelcome visitor had journeyed from 
afar, and his boat, sunk deep into the water with its 
load of barrels, boxes and bags, indicated that the 
journey had only begun. Significant, too, were a cou- 
ple of long Winchester rifles shining on a tarpaulin. 

The cold-faced crowd stirred and parted to permit 
the passage of a tall, thin, gray personage of official 
bearing, in a faded military coat. 

“Are you the musk-ox hunter?” he asked, in 
tones that contained no welcome. 

The boatman greeted this peremptory interlocutor 
with a cool laugh — a strange laugh, in which the 
muscles of his face appeared not to play. 

142 


Naza! Naza! Naza! 


“ Yes, I am the man,” he said. 

“ The chiefs of the Chippewayan and Great Slave 
tribes have been apprised of your coming. They 
have held council and are here to speak with you.” 

At a motion from the commandant, the line of 
chieftains piled down to the level bench and formed 
a half-circle before the voyager. To a man who 
had stood before grim Sitting Bull and noble Black 
Thunder of the Sioux, and faced the falcon-eyed 
Geronimo, and glanced over the sights of a rifle at 
gorgeous-feathered, wild, free Comanches, this semi- 
circle of savages — lords of the north — was a sorry 
comparison. Bedaubed and betrinketed, slouchy and 
slovenly, these low-statured chiefs belied in appear- 
ance their scorn-bright eyes and lofty mien. They 
made a sad group. 

One who spoke in unintelligible language, rolled 
out a haughty, sonorous voice over the listening mul- 
titude. When he had finished, a half-breed inter- 
preter, in the dress of a white man, spoke at a signal 
from the commandant. 

“ He says listen to the great orator of the Chippe- 
wayan. He has summoned all the chiefs of the tribes 
south of Great Slave Lake. He has held council. 
The cunning of the pale-face, who comes to take 
the musk-oxen, is well known. Let the pale-face 
hunter return to his own hunting-grounds; let him 
143 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

turn his face from the north. Never will the chiefs 
permit the white man to take musk-oxen alive from 
their country. The Ageter, the Musk-ox, is their 
god. He gives them food and fur. He will never 
come back if he is taken away, and the reindeer will 
follow him. The chiefs and their people would 
starve. They command the pale-face hunter to go 
back. They cry Naza! Naza! Naza! ” 

“ Say, for a thousand miles IVc heard that word 
Naza ! ” returned the hunter, with mingled curi- 
osity and disgust. “ At Edmonton Indian runners 
started ahead of me, and every village I struck the 
redskins would crowd round me and an old chief 
would harangue at me, and motion me back, and 
point north with Naza I Naza ! Naza ! What does 
it mean? ” 

“No white man knows; no Indian will tell,” 
answered the interpreter. “The traders think it 
means the Great Slave, the North Star, the North 
Spirit, the North Wind, the North Lights and 
Ageter, the musk-ox god.” 

“ Well, say to the chiefs to tell Ageter I have been 
four moons on the way after some of his little 
Ageters, and I’m going to keep on after them.” 

“ Hunter, you are most unwise,” broke in the 
commandant, in his officious voice. “The Indians 
will never permit you to take a musk-ox alive from 
144 


Nazal Nazal Nazal 


the north. They worship him, pray to him. It is 
a wonder you have not been stopped.” 

“ Who’ll stop me?” 

“ The Indians. They will kill you if you do not 
turn back.” 

“Faugh! to tell an American plainsman that!” 
The hunter paused a steady moment, with his eyelids 
narrowing over slits of blue fire. “ There is no law 
to keep me out, nothing but Indian superstition and 
the greed of the Hudson’s Bay people. And I am an 
old fox, not to be fooled by pretty baits. For years 
the officers of this fur-trading company have tried 
to keep out explorers. Even Sir John Franklin, an 
Englishman, could not buy food of them. The 
policy of the company is to side with the Indians, 
to keep out traders and trappers. Why? So they 
can keep on cheating the poor savages out of clothing 
and food by trading a few trinkets and blankets, a 
little tobacco and rum for millions of dollars worth 
of furs. Have I failed to hire man after man, 
Indian after Indian, not to know why I cannot get 
a helper? Have I, a plainsman, come a thousand 
miles alone to be scared by you, or a lot of craven 
Indians? Have I been dreaming of musk-oxen for 
forty years, to slink south now, when I begin to feel 
the north? Not I.” 

Deliberately every chief, with the sound of a hiss- 
145 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

ing snake, spat in the hunter’s face. He stood 
immovable while they perpetrated the outrage, then 
calmly wiped his cheeks, and in his strange, cool 
voice, addressed the intrepreter. 

“Tell them thus they show their true qualities, to . 
insult in council. Tell them they are not chiefs, but 
dogs. Tell them they are not even squaws, only 
poor, miserable starved dogs. Tell them I turn my 
back on them. Tell them the paleface has fought 
real chiefs, fierce, bold, like eagles, and he turns his 
back on dogs. Tell them he is the one who could 
teach them to raise the musk-oxen and the reindeer, 
and to keep out the cold and the wolf. But they are 
blinded. Tell them the hunter goes north.” 

Through the council of chiefs ran a low mutter, 
as of gathering thunder. 

True to his word, the hunter turned his back on 
them. As he brushed by, his eye caught a gaunt 
savage slipping from the boat. At the hunter’s stern 
call, the Indian leaped ashore, and started to run. 
He had stolen a parcel, and would have succeeded in 
eluding its owner but for an unforeseen obstacle, as 
striking as it was unexpected. 

A white man of colossal stature had stepped in 
the thief’s passage, and laid two great hands on him. 
Instantly the parcel flew from the Indian, and he 
spun in the air to fall into the river with a sounding 
146 


Naza! Naza! Naza! 


splash. Yells signaled the surprise and alarm caused 
by this unexpected incident. The Indian frantically 
swam to the shore. Whereupon the champion of the 
stranger in a strange land lifted a bag, which gave 
forth a musical clink of steel, and throwing it with 
the camp articles on the grassy bench, he extended a 
huge, friendly hand. 

“ My name is Rea,” he said, in deep, cavernous 
tones. 

“ Mine is Jones,” replied the hunter, and right 
quickly did he grip the proffered hand. He saw in 
Rea a giant, of whom he was but a stunted shadow. 
Six and one-half feet Rea stood, with yard-wide 
shoulders, a hulk of bone and brawn. His ponder- 
ous, shaggy head rested on a bull neck. His broad 
face, with its low forehead, its close-shut mastiff 
under jaw, its big, opaque eyes, pale and cruel as 
those of a jaguar, marked him a man of terrible 
brute force. 

“ Free-trader! ” called the commandant. “ Better 
think twice before you join fortunes with the musk-ox 
hunter.” 

“To hell with you an’ your rantin’, dog-eared 
redskins ! ” cried Rea. “ I’ve run agin a man of 
my own kind, a man of my own country, an’ I’m 
goin’ with him.” 

With this he thrust aside some encroaching, gaping 
147 


The Last of the Plamsmen 

Indians so unconcernedly and ungently that they 
sprawled upon the grass. 

Slowly the crowd mounted and once more lined 
the bank. 

Jones realized that by some late-turning stroke of 
fortune, he had fallen in with one of the few free- 
traders of the province. These free-traders, from 
the very nature of their calling — which was to defy 
the fur company, and to trap and trade on their own 
account — ^were a hardy and intrepid class of men. 
Rea’s worth to Jones exceeded that of a dozen ordi- 
nary men. He knew the ways of the north, the 
language of the tribes, the habits of animals, the 
handling of dogs, the uses of food and fuel. More- 
over, it soon appeared that he was a carpenter and 
blacksmith. 

“ There’s my kit,” he said, dumping the contents 
of his bag. It consisted of a bunch of steel traps, 
some tools, a broken ax, a box of miscellaneous things 
such as trappers used, and a few articles of flannel. 
“ Thievin’ redskins,” he added, in explanation of 
his poverty. “ Not much of an outfit. But I’m the 
man for you. Besides, I had a pal onct who knew 
you on the plains, called you ‘ Buff ’ Jones. Old 
Jim Bent he was.” 

“T recollect Jim,” said Jones. ‘‘ He went down 
in Custer’s last charge. So you were Jim’s pal, 

148 


Naza! Naza! Naza! 


That’d be a recommendation if you needed one. But 
the way you chucked the Indian overboard got me.” 

Rea soon manifested himself as a man of few 
words and much action. With the planks Jones 
had on board he heightened the stern and bow of 
the boat to keep out the beating waves in the rapids ; 
he fashioned a steering-gear and a less awkward 
set of oars, and shifted the cargo so as to make more 
room in the craft. 

“ Buff, we’re in for a storm. Set up a tarpaulin 
an’ make a fire. We’ll pretend to camp to-night. 
These Indians won’t dream we’d try to run the river 
after dark, and we’ll slip by under cover.” 

The sun glazed over; clouds moved up from the 
north ; a cold wind swept the tips of the spruces, and 
rain commenced to drive in gusts. By the time it 
was dark not an Indian showed himself. They were 
housed from the storm. Lights twinkled in the 
tepees and the big log cabins of the trading company. 
Jones scouted round till pitchy black night, when a 
freezing, pouring blast sent him back to the protec- 
tion of the tarpaulin. When he got there he found 
that Rea had taken It down and awaited him. 
“ Off! ” said the free-trader;, and with no more noise 
than a drifting feather the boat swung into the cur- 
rent and glided down till the twinkling fires no longer 

accentuated the darkness. 

149 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

By night the river, in common with all swift 
rivers, had a sullen voice, and murmured its hurry, 
its restraint, its menace, its meaning. The two boat- 
men, one at the steering gear, one at the oars, faced 
the pelting rain and watched the dim, dark line of 
trees. The craft slid noiselessly onward into the 
gloom. 

And into Jones’s ears, above the storm, poured 
another sound, a steady, muffled rumble, like the roll 
of giant chariot wheels. It had come to be a familiar 
roar to him, and the only thing which, in his long life 
of hazard, had ever sent the cold, prickling, tight 
shudder over his warm skin. Many times on the 
Athabasca that rumble had presaged the dangerous 
and dreaded rapids. 

“Hell Bend Rapids!” shouted Rea. “Bad 
water, but no rocks.” 

The rumble expanded to a roar, the roar to a boom 
that charged the air with heaviness, with a dreamy ! 
burr. The whole indistinct world appeared to be j 
moving to the lash of wind, to the sound of rain, to ' 
the roar of the river. The boat shot down and sailed 
aloft, met shock on shock, breasted leaping dim white 
waves, anH in a hollow, unearthly blend of watery 
sounds, rode on and on, buffeted, tossed, pitched into 
a black chaos that yet gleamed with obscure shrouds 
of light. Then the convulsive stream shrieked out 

150 


Naza! Naza! Nazal 


a last defiance, changed its course abruptly to slow 
down and drown the sound of rapids in muffling 
distance. Once more the craft swept on smoothly, 
to the drive of the wind and the rush of the rain. 

By midnight the storm cleared. Murky clouds 
split to show shining, blue-white stars and a fitful 
moon, that silvered the crests of the spruces and 
sometimes hid like a gleaming, black-threaded pearl 
behind the dark branches. 

Jones, a plainsman all his days, wonderingly 
watched the moon-blanched water. He saw it shade 
and darken under shadowy walls of granite, where 
it swelled with hollow song and gurgle. He heard 
again the far-off rumble, faint on the night wind. 
High cliff banks appeared, walled out the mellow 
light, and the river suddenly narrowed. Yawning 
holes, whirlpools of a second, opened with a gurgling 
suck and raced with the boat. 

On the craft flew. Far ahead, a long, declining 
plane of jumping frosted waves played dark and 
white with the moonbeams. The Slave plunged to 
his freedom, down his riven, stone-spiked bed, know- 
ing no patient eddy, and white-wreathed his dark, 
shiny rocks in spume and spray. 


151 


CHAPTER IX 


THE LAND OF THE MUSK-OX 

TAR cry It was from bright June at Port 
Chippewayan to dim October on Great Slave 



Lake. 


Two long, laborious months Rea and Jones 
threaded the crooked shores of the great Inland sea, 
to halt at the extreme northern end, where a plunging 
outlet formed the source of a river. Here they found 
a stone chimney and fireplace standing among the 
darkened, decayed ruins of a cabin. 

“ We mustn’t lose no time,” said Rea. “ I feel 
the winter In the wind. An’ see how dark the days 
arc gettin’ on us.” 

“ I’m for hunting musk-oxen,” replied Jones. 

“Man, we’re facin’ the northern night; we’re In 
the land of the midnight sun. Soon we’ll be shut 
In for seven months. A cabin we want, an’ wood, 
an’ meat.” 

A forest of stunted spruce trees edged on the lake, 
and soon Its dreary solitudes rang to the strokes of 
axes. The trees were small and uniform In size. 
Black stumps protruded, here and there, from the 


152 


The Land of the Mush-Ooo 

ground, showing work of the steel in time gone by. 
Jones observed that the living trees were no larger 
in diameter than the stumps, and questioned Rea in 
regard to the difference in age. 

“ Cut twenty-five, mebbe fifty years ago,” said the 
trapper. 

“ But the living trees are no bigger.” 

Trees an’ things don’t grow fast in the north- 
land.” 

They erected a fifteen-foot cabin round the stone 
chimney, roofed it with poles and branches of spruce, 
and a layer of sand. In digging near the fireplace 
Jones unearthed a rusty file and the head of a whisky 
keg, upon which was a sunken word in unintelligible 
letters. 

“ We’ve found the place,” said Rea. “ Franklin 
built a cabin here in 1819. An’ in 1833 Captain 
Back wintered here when he was in search of Captain 
Ross of the vessel Fury, It was those explorin’ parties 
thet cut the trees. I seen Indian sign out there, made 
last winter, I reckon ; but Indians never cut down no / 
trees.” 

The hunters completed the cabin, piled cords of 
firewood outside, stowed away the kegs of dried fish 
and fruits, the sacks of flour, boxes of crackers, 
canned meats and vegetables, sugar, salt, coffee, 
tobacco — all of the cargo; then took the boat apart 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

and carried it up the bank, which labor took them 
less than a week. 

Jones found sleeping in the cabin, despite the fire, 
uncomfortably cold, because of the wide chinks 
between the logs. It was hardly better than sleeping 
under the swaying spruces. When he essayed to stop 
up the cracks — a task by no means easy, considering 
the lack of material — Rea laughed his short “ Ho ! 
Ho!” and stopped him with the word, “Wait.” 
Every morning the green ice extended farther out 
into the lake; the sun paled dim and dimmer; the 
nights grew colder. On October 8 th the thermome- 
ter registered several degrees below zero; it fell a 
little more next night and continued to fall. 

“ Ho I Ho I ” cried Rea. “ She’s struck the 
toboggan, an’ presently she’ll commence to slide. 
Come on. Buff, we’ve work to do.” 

He caught up a bucket, made for their hole in 
the ice, rebroke a six-inch layer, the freeze of a few 
hours, and filling his bucket, returned to the cabin. 
Jones had no inkling of the trapper’s intention, and 
wonderingly he soused his bucket full of water and 
followed. 

By the time he had reached the cabin, a matter of 
some thirty or forty good paces, the water no longer 
splashed from his pail, for a thin film of ice pre- 
vented. Rea stood fifteen feet from the cabin, his 

154 


The Land of the Musk-Ooo 

back to the wind, and threw the water. Some of 
it froze in the air, most of it froze on the logs. The 
simple plan of the trapper to incase the cabin with 
ice was easily divined. All day the men worked, 
ceasing only when the cabin resembled a glistening 
mound. It had not a sharp corner nor a crevice. 
Inside it was warm and snug, and as light as when 
the chinks were open. 

A slight moderation of the weather brought the 
snow. Such snow ! A blinding white flutter of great 
flakes, as large as feathers I All day they rustled 
softly; all night they swirled, sweeping, seeping, 
brushing against the cabin. “ Ho ! Ho I ” roared 
Rea. “ ’Tis good; let her snow, an’ the reindeer 
will migrate. We’ll have fresh meat.” The sun 
shone again, but not brightly. A nipping wind cut 
down out of the frigid north and crusted the snow. 
The third night following the storm, when the 
hunters lay snug under their blankets, a commotion 
outside aroused them. 

“ Indians,” said Rea, “ come north for reindeer.” 

Half the night, shouting and yelling, barking of 
dogs, hauling of sleds and cracking of dried-skin 
tepees murdered sleep for those in the cabin. In the 
morning the level plain and edge of the forest held 
an Indian village. Caribou hides, strung on forked 
poles, constituted tent-like habitations with no dis- 
155 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


tinguishable doors. Fires smoked in holes in the 
snow. Not till late in the day did any life manifest 
itself round the tepees, and then a group of children, 
poorly clad in ragged pieces of blankets and skins, 
gaped at Jones. He saw their pinched, brown faces, 
staring, hungry eyes, naked legs and throats, and 
noted particularly their dwarfish size. When he 
spoke they fled precipitously a little way, then turned. 
He called again, and all ran except one small lad. 
Jones went into the cabin and came out with a hand- 
ful of sugar in square lumps. 

“ Yellow Knife Indians,” said Rea. “ A starved 
tribe! We’re in for it.” 

Jones made motions to the lad, but he remained 
still, as if transfixed, and his black eyes stared 
wonderingly. 

“ Molar nasu '(white man good) ,” said Rea. 

The lad came out of his trance and looked back 
at his companions, who edged nearer. Jones ate a 
lump of sugar, then handed one to the little Indian. 
He took it gingerly, put it into his mouth and imme- 
diately jumped up and down. 

“ Hoppieshampoolie I Hoppieshampoolie 1 ” he 
shouted to his brothers and sisters. They came on 
the run. 

“ Think he means sweet salt,” interpreted Rea. 
“ Of course these beggars never tasted sugar.” 

156 


The Land of the Musk-Ox 

■ • ' ^ 

The band of youngsters trooped round Jones, an^^ 
after tasting the white lumps, shrieked in sudi 
delight that the braves and squaws shuffled out of the 
tepees. 

In all his days Jones had never seen such miserable 
Indians. Dirty blankets hid all their person, except 
straggling black hair, hungry, wolfish eyes and moc- 
casined feet. They crowded into the path before the 
cabin door and mumbled and stared and waited. Ne 
dignity, no brightness, no suggestion of friendliness 
marked this peculiar attitude. 

“ Starved ! ” exclaimed Rea. “ They’ve come t^ 
the lake to invoke the Great Spirit to send the rein 
deer. Buff, whatever you do, don’t feed them. If 
you do, we’ll have them on our hands all winter. It’s 
cruel, but, man, we’re in the north! ” 

Notwithstanding the practical trapper’s admoni- 
tion Jones could not resist the pleading of the chil- 
dren. He could not stand by and sec them starve. 
After ascertaining there was absolutely nothing to 
eat in the tepees, he invited the little ones into the 
cabin, and made a great pot of soup, into which he 
dropped compressed biscuits. The savage children 
were like wildcats. Jones had to call in Rea to assist 
him in keeping the famished little aborigines from 
tearing each other to pieces. When finally they were 
all fed, they had to be driven out of the cabin. 

157 


The Last of the Plamsmen 


“ That’s new to me,” said Jones. “ Poor little 
beggars ! ” 

Rea doubtfully shook his shaggy head. 

Next day Jones traded with the Yellow Knives. 
He had a goodly supply of baubles, besides blankets, 
gloves and boxes of canned goods, which he had 
brought for such trading. He secured a dozen of 
the large-boned, white and black Indian dogs — 
huskies, Rea called them — two long sleds with har- 
ness and several pairs of snowshoes. This trade 
made Jones rub his hands In satisfaction, for during 
all the long journey north he had failed to barter for 
such cardinal necessities to the success of his venture. 

“ Better have doled out the grub to them in 
rations,” grumbled Rea. 

Twenty- four hours sufficed to show Jones the wis- 
dom of the trapper’s words, for in just that time the 
crazed, ignorant savages had glutted the generous 
store of food, which should have lasted them for 
weeks. The next day they were begging at the cabin 
door. Rea cursed and threatened them with his fists, 
but they returned again and again. 

Days passed. All the time, in light and dark, the 
Indians filled the air with dismal chant and doleful 
Incantations to the Great Spirit, and the turn! turn! 
turn! turn! of tomtoms, a specific feature of their 
wild prayer for food. 


158 


The Land of the Mush-Ox 

But the white monotony of the rolling land and 
level lake remained unbroken. The reindeer did 
not come. The days became shorter, dimmer, darker. 
The mercury kept on the slide. 

Forty degrees below zero did not trouble the 
Indians. They stamped till they dropped, and sang 
till their voices vanished, and beat the tomtoms ever- 
lastingly. Jones fed the children once each day, 
against the trapper’s advice. 

One day, while Rea was absent, a dozen braves 
succeeded in forcing an entrance, and clamored so 
fiercely, and threatened so desperately, that Jones 
was on the point of giving them food when the door 
opened to admit Rea. 

With a glance he saw the situation. He dropped 
the bucket he carried, threw the door wide open and 
commenced action. Because of his great bulk he 
seemed slow, but every blow of his sledge-hammer 
fist knocked a brave against the wall, or through the 
door Into the snow. When he could reach two 
savages at once, by way of diversion, he swung their 
heads together with a crack. They dropped like 
dead things. Then he handled them as If they were 
sacks of corn, pitching them out into the snow. In 
two minutes the cabin was clear. He banged the 
door and slipped the bar In place. 

“ Buff, I’m goln’ to get mad at these thievin’ red- 
159 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


skins some day,” he said gruffly. The expanse of his 
chest heaved slightly, like the slow swell of a calm 
ocean, but there was no other indication of unusual 
exertion. 

Jones laughed, and again gave thanks for the ^ 
comradeship of this strange man. 

Shortly afterward, he went out for wood, and as 
usual scanned the expanse of the lake. The sun shone 
mistier and wanner, and frost feathers floated in the 
air. Sky and sun and plain and lake — all were gray. 
Jones fancied he saw a distant moving mass of darker 
shade than the gray background. He called the 
trapper. 

“ Caribou,” said Rea instantly. “ The vanguard 
of the migration. Hear the Indians! Hear their 
cry : ‘ Aton 1 Aton ! ’ they mean reindeer. The 
idiots have scared the herd with their infernal racket, 
an’ no meat will they get. The caribou will keep to 
the ice, an’ man or Indian can’t stalk them there.” 

For a few moments his companion surveyed the 
lake and shore with a plainsman’s eye, then dashed 
within, to reappear with a Winchester in each hand. 
Through the crowd of bewailing, bemoaning Indians 
he sped, to the low, dying bank”. The hard crust 
of snow upheld him. The gray cloud was a thou- 
sand. yards out upon the lake and moving southeast.: 
If the caribou did not swerve from this course they 
160 


The Land of the Mush-Ooo 

would pass close to a projecting point of land, a half- 
mile up the lake. So, keeping a wary eye upon 
them, the hunter ran swiftly. He had not hunted 
\ antelope and buffalo on the plains all his life without 
■ learning how to approach moving game. As long 
as the caribou were in action, they could not tell 
whether he moved or was motionless. In order to 
tell if an object was inanimate or not, they must stop 
to see, of which fact the keen hunter took advantage. 
Suddenly he saw the gray mass slow down and bunch 
up. He stopped running, to stand like a stump. 
When the reindeer moved again, he moved, and 
when they slackened again, he stopped and became 
motionless. As they kept to their course, he worked 
gradually closer and closer. Soon he distinguished 
gray, bobbing heads. When the leader showed 
signs of halting in his slow trot the hunter again 
became a statue. He saw they were easy to deceive ; 
and, daringly confident of success, he encroached on 
the ice and closed up the gap till not more than two 
. hundred yards separated him from the gray, bobbing, 
antlered mass. 

' Jones dropped on one knee. A moment only his 
eyes lingered admiringly on the wild and beautiful 
spectacle; then he swept one of the rifles to a level. 
Old habit made the little beaded sight cover first the 
stately leader. Bang! The gray monarch leaped 
161 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


straight forward, forehoofs up, antlered head back, 
to fall dead with a crash. Then for a few moments 
the Winchester spat a deadly stream of fire, and when 
emptied was thrown down for the other gun, which 
in the steady, sure hands of the hunter belched death 
to the caribou. 

The herd rushed on, leaving the white surface of 
the lake gray with a struggling, kicking, bellowing 
heap. When Jones reached the caribou he saw 
several trying to rise on crippled legs. With his 
knife he killed these, not without some hazard to 
himself. Most of the fallen ones were already dead, 
and the others soon lay still. Beautiful gray crea- 
tures they were, almost white, with wide-reaching, 
symmetrical horns. 

A medley of yells arose from the shore, and Rea 
appeared running with two sleds, with the whole 
tribe of Yellow Knives pouring out of the forest 
behind him. 

“ Buff, you’re jest what old Jim said you was,” 
thundered Rea, as he surveyed the gray pile. 
“ Here’s winter meat, an’ I’d not have given a biscuit 
for all the meat I thought you’d get.” 

“ Thirty shots in less than thirty seconds,” said 
Jones, “ an’ I’ll bet every ball I sent touched hair. 
How many reindeer?” 

“Twenty! twenty! Buff, or I’ve forgot how to 
162 


The Land of the Mush-Ooo 


count. I guess mebbe you can’t handle them shootin’ 
arms. Ho ! here comes the howlin’ redskins.” 

Rea whipped out a bowie knife and began disem- 
boweling the reindeer. He had not proceeded far 
in his task when the crazed savages were around 
him. Every one carried a basket or receptacle, which 
he swung aloft, and they sang, prayed, rejoiced on 
their knees. Jones turned away from the sickening 
scenes that convinced him these savages were little 
better than cannibals. Rea cursed them, and tumbled 
them over, and threatened them with the big bowie. 
An altercation ensued, heated on his side, frenzied 
on theirs. Thinking some treachery might befall his 
comrade, Jones ran into the thick of the group. 

“ Share with them, Rea, share with them.” 

Whereupon the giant hauled out ten smoking car- 
casses. Bursting into a babel of savage glee and 
tumbling over one another, the Indians pulled the 
caribou to the shore. 

“ Thievin’ fools I ” growled Rea, wiping the sweat 
from his brow. “ Said they’d prevailed on the Great 
Spirit to send the reindeer. Why, they’d never 
smelled warm meat but for you. Now, Buff, they’ll 
gorge every hair, hide an’ hoof of their share in less 
than a week. Thet’s the last we do for the damned 
cannibals. Didn’t you see them eatin’ of the raw 
innards? — faugh! I’m calculatin’ we’ll see no more 
163 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


reindeer. It’s late for the migration. The big herd 
has driven southward. But we’re lucky, thanks to 
your prairie trainin’. Come on now with the sleds, or 
we’ll have a pack of wolves to fight.” 

By loading three reindeer on each sled, the hunters 
were not long in transporting them to the cabin. 
“ Buff, there ain’t much doubt about them keepin’ 
nice and cool,” said Rea. “ They’ll freeze, an’ we 
can skin them when we want.” 

That night the starved wolf dogs gorged them- 
selves till they could not rise from the snow. Like- 
wise the Yellow Knives feasted. How long the ten 
reindeer might have served the wasteful tribe, Rea 
and Jones never found out. The next day two 
Indians arrived with dog-trains, and their advent was 
hailed with another feast, and a pow-wow that lasted 
into the night. 

“ Guess we’re goin’ to get rid of our blasted 
hungry neighbors,” said Rea, coming in next morning 
with the water pail, “ an’ I’ll be durned. Buff, if I 
I don’t believe them crazy heathen have been told 
about you. Them Indians was messengers. Grab 
your gun, an’ let’s walk over and see.” 

The Yellow Knives were breaking camp, and the 
hunters were at once conscious of the difference in 
their bearing. Rea addressed several braves, but got 
no reply. He laid his broad hand on the old wrin- 

164 


The Land of the Musk-Ooo 

kled chief, who repulsed him, and turned his back. 
With a growl, the trapper spun the Indian round, 
and spoke as many words of the language as he knew. 
He got a cold response, which ended in the ragged 
old chief starting up, stretching a long, dark arm 
northward, and with eyes fixed in fanatical subjection, 
shouting : “ Naza I Naza I Naza I ” 

“ Heathen ! ” Rea shook his gun in the faces of 
the messengers. “ It’ll go bad with you to come 
Nazain’ any longer on our trail. Come, Buff, clear 
out before I get mad.” 

When they were once more in the cabin, Rea told 
Jones that the messengers had been sent to warn the 
Yellow Knives not to aid the white hunters in any 
way. That night the dogs were kept inside, and the 
men took turns in watching. Morning showed a 
broad trail southward. And with the going of the 
Yellow Knives the mercury dropped to fifty, and the 
long, twilight winter night fell. 

So with this agreeable riddance and plenty of meat 
and fuel to cheer them, the hunters sat down in their 
snug cabin to wait many months for daylight. 

Those few intervals when the wind did not blow 
were the only times Rea and Jones got out of doors. 
To the plainsman, new to the north, the dim gray 
world about him was of exceeding interest. Out of 
the twilight shone a wan, round, lusterless ring that 
165 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


' Rea said was the sun. The silence and desolation 
’were heart-numbing. 

“ Where are the wolves? ” asked Jones of Rea. 

“ Wolves can’t live on snow. They’re farther 
south after caribou, or farther north after musk-ox.” 

In those few still intervals Jones remained out as 
long as he dared, with the mercury sinking to sixty 
degrees. He turned from the wonder of the unreal, 
remote sun, to the marvel in the north — Aurora 
borealis — ever-present, ever-changing, ever-beautiful I 
-and he gazed in rapt attention. 

“ Polar lights,” said Rea, as if he were speaking 
of biscuits. “ You’ll freeze. It’s gettin’ cold.” 

Cold it became, to the matter of seventy degrees. 
Frost covered the walls of the cabin and the roof, 
except just over the fire. The reindeer were harder 
than iron. A knife or an ax or a steel-trap burned 
as if it had been heated in fire, and stuck to the hand. 
The hunters experienced trouble in breathing; the air 
hurt their lungs. 

The months dragged. Rea grew more silent day 
by day, and as he sat before the fire his wide shoul- 
ders sagged lower and lower. Jones, unaccustomed 
to the waiting, the restraint, the barrier of the north, 
worked on guns, sleds, harness, till he felt he would 
go mad. Then to save his mind he constructed a 
windmill of caribou hides and pondered over it, 
166 


The Land of the Mush-Ooo 

trying to invent, to put into practical use an Idea he 
had once conceived. 

Hour after hour he lay under his blankets unable 
to sleep, and listened to the north wind. Sometimes 
Rea mumbled In his slumbers; once his giant form 
started up, and he muttered a woman’s name. 
Shadows from the fire flickered on the walls, vision- 
ary, spectral shadows, cold and gray, fitting the 
north. At such times he longed with all the power 
of his soul to be among those scenes far southward, 
which he called home. For days Rea never spoke a 
word, only gazed Into the fire, ate and slept. Jones, 
drifting far from his real self, feared the strange 
mood of the trapper and sought to break It, but 
without avail. More and more he reproached him- 
self, and singularly on the one fact that, as he did 
not smoke himself, he had brought only a small store 
of tobacco. Rea, Inordinate and Inveterate smoker, 
had puffed away all the weed In clouds of white, 
then had relapsed Into gloom. 


16^ 


CHAPTER X 


SUCCESS AND FAILURE 

A T last the marvel in the north dimmed, the 
obscure gray shade lifted, the hope in the 
south brightened, and the mercury climbed — 
reluctantly, with a tyrant’s hate to relinquish power. 

Spring weather at twenty-five below zero! On 
April 1 2th a small band of Indians made their appear- 
ance. Of the Dog tribe were they, an offcast of the 
Great Slaves, according to Rea, and as motley, star- 
ing and starved as the Yellow Knives. But they were 
friendly, which presupposed ignorance of the white 
hunters, and Rea persuaded the strongest brave to 
accompany them as guide northward after musk-oxen. 

On April i 6 th, having given the Indians several 
caribou carcasses, and assuring them that the cabin 
was protected by white spirits, Rea and Jones, each 
with sled and train of dogs, started out after their 
guide, who was similarly equipped, over the glisten- 
ing snow toward the north. They made sixty miles 
the first day, and pitched their Indian tepee on the 
shores of Artillery Lake. Traveling northeast, they 
covered its white waste of one hundred miles in two 
168 


Success and Failure 


days. Then a day due north, over rolling, monont- 
onously snowy plain, devoid of rock, tree or shrub, 
brought them into a country of the strangest, queerest 
little spruce trees, very slender, and none of them over 
fifteen feet in height. A primeval forest of saplings. 

“ Ditchen Ncchila! ” said the guide. 

“ Land of Sticks Little,” translated Rea. 

An occasional reindeer was seen and numerous 
foxes and hares trotted off into the woods, evincing 
more curiosity than fear. All were silver white, 
even the reindeer, at a distance, taking the hue of 
the north. Once a beautiful creature, unblemished 
as the snow it trod, ran up a ridge and stood watch- 
ing the hunters. It resembled a monster dog, only it 
was inexpressibly more wild looking. 

“ Ho I Ho I there you are ! ” cried Rea, reaching 
Yor his Winchester. “Polar wolf! Them’s the 
white devils we’ll have hell with.” 

As if the wolf understood, he lifted his white, 
sharp head and uttered a bark or howl that was like 
nothing so much as a haunting, unearthly mourn. 
The animal then merged into the white, as if he were 
really a spirit of the world whence his cry seemed to 
come. 

In this ancient forest of youthful appearing trees, 
the hunters cut firewood to the full carrying capacity 
of the sleds. For five days the Indian guide drove 
169 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


his dogs over the smooth crust, and on the sixth 
day, about noon, halting in a hollow, he pointed to 
tracks in the snow and called out: “ Ageterl Agcterl 
Ageter ! ” 

The hunters saw sharply defined hoof-marks, not 
unlike the tracks of reindeer, except that they were 
longer. The tepee was set up on the spot and the 
dogs unharnessed. 

The Indian led the way with the dogs, and Rea 
and Jones followed, slipping over the hard crust 
without sinking in and traveling swiftly. Soon the 
guide, pointing, again let out the cry: “Ageterl” 
at the same moment loosing the dogs. 

Some few hundred yards down the hollow, a 
number of large black animals, not unlike the shaggy, 
humpy buffalo, lumbered over the snow. Jones 
echoed Rea’s yell, and broke into a run, easily dis- 
tancing the puffing giant. 

The musk-oxen squared round to the dogs, and 
were soon surrounded by the yelping pack. Jones 
came up to find six old bulls uttering grunts of rage 
and shaking ram-like horns at their tormentors. Not- 
withstanding that for Jones this was the cumulation 
of years of desire, the crowning moment, the climax 
and fruition of long-harbored dreams, he halted 
before the tame and helpless beasts, with joy not 
unmixed with pain. 


170 


Success and Failure 


“ It will be murder! ” he exclaimed. “ It’s like 
shooting down sheep.” 

Rea came crashing up behind him and yelled: 
“ Get busy. We need fresh meat, an’ I want the 
skins.” 

The bulls succumbed to well-directed shots, and 
the Indian and Rea hurried back to camp with the 
dogs to fetch the sleds, while Jones examined with 
warm Interest the animals he had wanted to see all 
his life. He found the largest bull approached 
within a third of the size of a buffalo. He was of a 
brownish-black color and very like a large, woolly 
ram. His head was broad, with sharp, small ears; 
the horns had wide and flattened bases and lay flat 
on the head, to run down back of the eyes, then curve 
forward to a sharp point. Like the bison, the musk- 
ox had short, heavy limbs, covered with very long 
hair, and small, hard hoofs with hairy tufts Inside 
the curve of bone, which probably served as pads or 
checks to hold the hoof firm on ice. His legs seemed 
out of proportion to his body. 

Two musk-oxen were loaded on a sled and hauled 
to camp In one trip. Skinning them was but short 
work for such expert hands. All the choice cuts of 
meat were saved. No time was lost In broiling a 
steak, which they found sweet and juicy, with a 
flavor of musk that was disagreeable. 

171 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


“ Now, Rea, for the calves,” exclaimed Jones, 
“ and then we’re homeward bound.” 

“ I hate to tell this redskin,” replied Rea. “ He’ll 
be like the others. But it ain’t likely he’d desert 
us here. He’s far from his base, with nothin’ but 
thet old musket.” Rea then commanded the atten- 
tion of the brave, and began to mangle the Great 
Slave and Yellow Knife languages. Of this mixture 
Jones knew but few words. “ Ageter nechila,” which 
Rea kept repeating, he knew, however, meant “ musk- 
oxen little.” 

The guide stared, suddenly appeared to get Rea’s 
meaning, then vigorously shook his head and gazed 
at Jones in fear and horror. Following this came 
an action as singular as inexplicable. Slowly rising, 
he faced the north, lifted his hand, and remained stat- 
uesque in his immobility. Then he began deliberately 
packing his blankets and traps on his sled, which had 
not been unhitched from the train of dogs. 

“ Jackoway ditchen hula,” he said, and pointed 
south. 

“ Jackoway ditchen hula,” echoed Rea. “ The 
damned Indian says ‘ wife sticks none.’ He’s goin’ 
to quit us. What do you think of thet? His wife’s 
out of wood. Jackoway out of wood, an’ here we 
are two days from the Arctic Ocean! Jones, the 
damned heathen don’t go back I ” 

172 


Success and Failure 


The trapper coolly cocked his rifle. The savage, 
who plainly saw and understood the action, never 
flinched. He turned his breast to Rea, and there 
was nothing in his demeanor to suggest his relation 
to a craven tribe. 

“ Good heavens, Rea, don’t kill him I ” exclaimed 
Jones, knocking up the leveled rifle. 

“Why not. I’d like to know?” demanded Rea, 
as if he were considering the fate of a threatening 
beast. “ I reckon it’d be a bad thing for us to let 
him go.” 

“ Let him go,” said Jones. “ We are here on the 
ground. We have dogs and meat. We’ll get our 
calves and reach the lake as soon as he does, and we 
might get there before.” 

“ Mebbe we will,” growled Rea. 

No vacillation attended the Indian’s mood. From 
a friendly guide, he had suddenly been transformed 
into a dark, sullen savage. He refused the musk-ox 
meat offered by Jones, and he pointed south and 
looked at the white hunters as if he asked them to go 
with him. Both men shook their heads in answer. 
The savage struck his breast a sounding blow and 
with his index finger pointed at the white of the 
north, he shouted dramatically: “Naza! Nazal 
Naza!” 

He then leaped upon his sled, lashed his dogs inta 
173 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


a run, and without looking back disappeared over 
a ridge. 

The musk-ox hunters sat long silent. Finally Rea 
shook his shaggy locks and roared. “ Ho ! Ho ! 
Jackoway out of wood! Jackoway out of wood! 
Jackoway out of wood !” 

On the day following the desertion, Jones found 
tracks to the north of the camp, making a broad 
trail in which were numerous little imprints that sent 
him flying back to get Rea and the dogs. Musk- 
oxen in great numbers had passed in the night, and 
Jones and Rea had not trailed the herd a mile before 
they had it in sight. When the dogs burst into full 
cry, the musk-oxen climbed a high knoll and squared 
about to give battle. 

“Calves! Calves! Calves !” cried Jones. 

“ Hold back ! Hold back ! Thet’s a big herd, an’ 
they’ll show fight.” 

As good fortune would have it, the herd split up 
into several sections, and one part, hard pressed by 
the dogs, ran down the knoll, to be cornered under 
the lee of a bank. The hunters, seeing this small 
number, hurried upon them to find three cows and 
five badly frightened little calves backed against the 
bank of snow, with small red eyes fastened on the 
barking, snapping dogs. 

To a man of Jones’s experience and skill, the 

174 


Success and Failure 


capturing of the calves was a ridiculously easy piece 
of work. The cows tossed their heads, watched the 
dogs, and forgot their young. The first cast of the 
lasso settled over the neck of a little fellow. Jones 
hauled him out over the slippery snow and laughed 
as he bound the hairy legs. In less time than he had 
taken to capture one buffalo calf, with half the effort, 
he had all the little musk-oxen bound fast. Then he 
signaled this feat by pealing out an Indian yell of 
victory. 

“ Buff, weVe got ’em,” cried Rea; “ an’ now for 
the hell of it — gettin’ ’em home. I’ll fetch the sleds. 
(You might as well down thet best cow for me. I 
can use another skin.” 

Of all Jones’s prizes of captured wild beasts — 
which numbered nearly every species common to 
western North America — ^^he took greatest pride in 
the little musk-oxen. In truth, so great had been 
his passion to capture some of these rare and inac- 
cessible mammals, that he considered the day’s work 
the fulfillment of his life’s purpose. He was happy. 
Never had he been so delighted as when, the very 
evening of their captivity, the musk-oxen, evincing 
no particular fear of him, began to dig with sharp 
hoofs into the snow for moss. And they found moss, 
and ate it, which solved Jones’s greatest problem. 
He had hardly dared to think how to feed them, and 

175 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


here they were picking sustenance out of the frozen 
snow. 

“ Rea, will you look at that! Rea, will you look 
at that! ” he kept repeating. “ See, they’re hunting 
feed.” > 

And the giant, with his rare smile, watched him 
play with the calves. They were about two and a 
half feet high, and resembled long-haired sheep. The 
ears and horns were undiscernible, and their color 
considerably lighter than that of the matured beasts. 

“ No sense of fear of man,” said the life-student 
of animals. “ But they shrink from the dogs.” 

In packing for the journey south, the captives were 
strapped on the sleds. This circumstance necessi- 
tated a sacrifice of meat and wood, which brought 
grave, doubtful shakes of Rea’s great head. 

Days of hastening over the icy snow, with short 
hours for sleep and rest, passed before the hunters 
awoke to the consciousness that they were lost. The 
meat they had packed had gone to feed themselves 
and the dogs. Only a few sticks of wood were left. 

“ Better kill a calf, an’ cook meat while we’ve got 
a little wood left,” suggested Rea. 

‘‘ Kill one of my calves? I’d starve first! ” cried 
Jones. 

The hungry giant said no more. 

They headed southwest. All about them glared 
176 


Success and Failure 


the grim monotony of the arctics. No rock or bush 
or tree made a welcome mark upon the hoary plain. 
Wonderland of frost, white marble desert, infinitude 
of gleaming silences I 

Snow began to fall, making the dogs flounder, 
obliterating the sun by which they traveled. They 
camped to wait for clearing weather. Biscuits 
soaked in tea made their meal. At dawn Jones 
crawled out of the tepee. The snow had ceased. 
But where were the dogs? He yelled in alarm. 
Then little mounds of white, scattered here and 
there, became animated, heaved, rocked and rose to 
fall to pieces, exposing the dogs. Blankets of snow 
had been their covering. 

Rea had ceased his “ Jackoway out of wood,” 
for a reiterated question: ‘‘ Where are the wolves? ” 

“ Lost,” replied Jones in hollow humor. 

Near the close of that day, in which they had 
resumed travel, from the crest of a ridge they 
descried a long, low, undulating dark line. It proved 
to be the forest of “ little sticks,” where, with grate- 
ful assurance of fire and of soon finding their old 
trail, they made camp. 

“ We’ve four biscuits left, an’ enough tea for one 
drink each,” said Rea. “ I calculate we’re two hun- 
dred miles from Great Slave Lake. Where are the 
wolves? ” 


177 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

At that moment the night wind wafted through 
the forest a long, haunting mourn. The calves 
shifted uneasily; the dogs raised sharp noses to sniff 
the air, and Rea, settling back against a tree, cried 
out: “ Ho! Ho! ” Again the savage sound, a keen 
wailing note with the hunger of the northland in it, 
broke the cold silence. “ You’ll see a pack of real 
wolves in a minute,” said Rea. Soon a swift patter- 
ing of feet down a forest slope brought him to his 
feet with a curse to reach a brawny hand for his 
rifle. White streaks crossed the black of the tree 
trunks; then indistinct forms, the color of snow, 
swept up, spread out and streaked to and fro. Jones 
thought the great, gaunt, pure white beasts the spec- 
tral wolves of Rea’s fancy, for they were silent, and 
silent wolves must belong to dreams only. 

“ Ho ! Ho ! ” yelled Rea. “ There’s green-fire eyes 
for you. Buff. Hell itself ain’t nothin’ to these white 
devils. Get the calves in the tepee, an’ stand ready 
to loose the dogs, for we’ve got to fight.” 

Raising his rifle he opened fire upon the white foe. 
A struggling, rustling sound followed the shots. 
But whether it was the threshing about of wolves 
dying in agony, or the fighting of the fortunate ones 
over those shot, could not be ascertained in the 
confusion. 

Following his example Jones also fired rapidly on 
178 


Success and Failure 


the other side of the tepee. The same inarticulate, 
silently rustling wrestle succeeded this volley. 

“ Wait! ” cried Rea. “ Be sparin’ of cartridges.” 

The dogs strained at their chains and bravely 
bayed the wolves. The hunters heaped logs and 
brush on the fire, which, blazing up, sent a bright 
light far into the woods. On the outer edge of that 
circle moved the white, restless, gliding forms. 

“ They’re more afraid of fire than of us,” said 
Jones. 

So it proved. When the fire burned and crackled 
they kept well in the background. The hunters had 
a long respite from serious anxiety, during which! 
time they collected all the available wood at hand. 
But at m/idnight, when this had been mostly con- 
sumed, the wolves grew bold again. 

“ Have you any shots left for the 45-90, besides 
what’s in the magazine?” asked Rea. 

“Yes, a good handful.” 

“Well, get busy.” 

With careful aim Jones emptied the magazine into 
the gray, gliding, groping mass. The same rustling, 
shuffling, almost silent strife ensued. 

“ Rea, there’s something uncanny about those 
brutes. A silent pack of wolves ! ” 

“ Ho I Ho 1 ” rolled the giant’s answer through 
the woods. 


179 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


For the present the attack appeared to have been 
effectually checked. The hunters, sparingly adding 
a little of their fast diminishing pile of fuel to the 
fire, decided to lie down for much needed rest, but 
not for sleep. How long they lay there, cramped 
by the calves, listening for stealthy steps, neither 
could tell ; it might have been moments and it might 
have been hours. All at once came a rapid rush of 
pattering feet, succeeded by a chorus of angry barks, 
then a terrible commingling of savage snarls, growls, 
snaps and yelps. 

“Out!” yelled Rea. “They’re on the dogs!” 

Jones pushed his cocked rifle ahead of him and 
straightened up outside the tepee. A wolf, large 
as a panther and white as the gleaming snow, sprang 
at him. Even as he discharged his rifle, right against 
the breast of the beast, he saw its dripping jaws, its 
wicked green eyes, like spurts of fire and felt its hot 
breath. It fell at his feet and writhed in the death 
struggle. Slender bodies of black and white, whir- 
ling and tussling together, sent out fiendish uproar. 
Rea threw a blazing stick of wood among them, 
which sizzled as it met the furry coats, and brandish- 
ing another he ran into the thick of the fight. Unable 
to stand the proximity of fire, the wolves bolted and 
loped off into the woods. 

“ What a huge brute! ” exclaimed Jones, dragging 
180 


Success and Failure 


the one he had shot into the light. It was a superb 
animal, thin, supple, strong, with a coat of frosty 
fur, very long and fine. Rea began at once to skin 
it, remarking that he hoped to find other pelts in the 
morning. 

Though the wolves remained in the vicinity of 
camp, none ventured near. The dogs moaned and 
whined ; their restlessness increased as dawn ap- 
proached, and when the gray light came, Jones found 
that some of them had been badly lacerated by the 
fangs of the wolves. Rea hunted for dead wolves 
and found not so much as a piece of white fur. 

Soon the hunters were speeding southward. Other 
than a disposition to fight among themselves, the 
dogs showed no evil effects of the attack. They 
were lashed to their best speed, for Rea said the 
white rangers of the north would never quit their 
trail. All day the men listened for the wild, lone- 
some, haunting mourn. But it came not. 

A wonderful halo of white and gold, that Rea 
called a sun-dog, hung in the sky all afternoon, and 
dazzlingly bright over the dazzling world of snow, 
circled and glowed a mocking sun, brother of the 
desert mirage, beautiful illusion, smiling cold out of 
the polar blue. 

The first pale evening star twinkled In the east 
when the hunters made camp on the shore of Artll- 
181 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

lery Lake. At dusk the clear, silent air opened to 
the sound of a long, haunting mourn. 

“ Ho ! Ho ! ’’ called Rea. His hoarse, deep voice 
rang defiance to the foe. 

While he built a fire before the tepee, Jones strode 
up and down, suddenly to whip out his knife and 
make for the tame little musk-oxen, now digging in 
the snow. Then he wheeled abruptly and held out 
the blade to Rea. 

“ What for? ” demanded the giant. 

“ WeVe got to eat,” said Jones. “ And I can’t 
kill one of them. I can’t, so you do it.” 

“ Kill one of our calves? ” roared Rea. “ Not till 
hell freezes over ! I ain’t commenced to get hungry. 
Besides, the wolves are going to eat us, calves and 
all.” 

Nothing more was said. They ate their last bis- 
cuit. Jones packed the calves away in the tepee, 
and turned to the dogs. All day they had worried 
him; something was amiss with them, and even as 
he went among them a fierce fight broke out. Jones 
saw It was unusual, for the attacked dogs showed 
craven fear, and the attacking ones a howling, savage 
intensity that surprised him. Then one of the vicious 
brutes rolled his eyes, frothed at the mouth, shud- 
dered and leaped In his harness, vented a hoarse 
howl and fell back shaking and retching. 

182 


Success and Failure 


“ My God! Rea I ” cried Jones in horror. “ Come 
here 1 Look 1 That dog is dying of rabies I Hydro- 
phobia 1 The white wolves have hydrophobia I ” 

“ If you ain’t right I ” exclaimed Rea. “ I seen 
a dog die of thet onct, an’ he acted like this. An’ 
thet one ain’t all. Look, Buff I look at them green 
eyes! Didn’t I say the white wolves was hell? 
We’ll have to kill every dog w^e’ve got.” 

Jones shot the dog, and soon afterward three more 
that manifested signs of the disease. It was an 
awful situation. To kill all the dogs meant simply 
to sacrifice his life and Rea’s; it meant abandoning 
hope of ever reaching the cabin. Then to risk being 
bitten by one of the poisoned, maddened brutes, to 
risk the most horrible of agonizing deaths — that was 
even worse. 

“ Rea, we’ve one chance,” cried Jones, with pale 
face. “ Can you hold the dogs, one by one, while I 
muzzle them ? ” 

“ Ho! Ho ! ” replied the giant. Placing his bowie 
knife between his teeth, with gloved hands he seized 
and dragged one of the dogs to the campfire. The 
‘animal whined and protested, but showed no ill 
spirit. Jones muzzled his jaws tightly with strong 
cords. Another and another were tied up, then one 
which tried to snap at Jones was nearly crushed by 
the giant’s grip. The last, a surly brute, broke out 
183 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


into mad ravings the moment he felt the touch of 
Jones’s hands, and writhing, frothing, he snapped 
Jones’s sleeve. Rea jerked him loose and held him 
in the air with one arm, while with the other he 
swung the bowie. They hauled the dead dogs out 
on the snow, and returning to the fire sat down to 
await the cry they expected. 

Presently, as darkness fastened down tight, it 
came — the same cry, wild, haunting, mourning. But 
'for hours it was not repeated. 

“Better rest some,” said Rea; “I’ll call you if 
they come.” 

Jones dropped to sleep as he touched his blankets. 
Morning dawned for him, to find the great, dark, 
shadowy figure of the giant nodding over the fire. 

“How’s this? Why didn’t you call me?” 
demanded Jones. 

“ The wolves only fought a little over the dead 
dogs.” 

On the instant Jones saw a wolf skulking up the 
bank. Throwing up his rifle, which he had carried 
out of the tepee, he took a snap-shot at the beast. 
It ran off on three legs, to go out of sight over the 
bank. Jones scrambled up the steep, slippery place, 
and upon arriving at the ridge, which took several 
moments of hard work, he looked everywhere for 
the wolf. In a moment he saw the animal, standing 
184 


Success and Failure 


still some hundred or more paces down a hollow. 
With the quick report of Jones’s second shot, the 
wolf fell and rolled over. The hunter ran to the 
spot to find the wolf was dead. Taking hold of a 
front paw, he dragged the animal over the snow to ^ 
camp. Rea began to skin the animal, when suddenly 
he exclaimed: 

“This fellow’s hind foot is gone! ” 

“ That’s strange. I saw it hanging by the skin 
as the wolf ran up the bank. I’ll look for it.” 

By the bloody trail on the snow he returned to the 
place where the wolf had fallen, and thence back to 
the spot where its leg had been broken by the bullet. 
He discovered no sign of the foot. 

“ Didn’t find it, did you? ” said Rea. 

“ No, and it appears odd to me. The snow is so 
hard the foot could not have sunk.” 

“ Well, the wolf ate his foot, thet’s what,” 
returned Rea. “ Look at them teeth marks! ” 

“Is it possible?” Jones stared at the leg Rea 
held up. 

“ Yes, it is. These wolves are crazy at times. 
You’ve seen thct. An’ the smell of blood, an’ nothin’ 
else, mind you, in my opinion, made him eat his own 
foot. We’ll cut him open.” 

Impossible as the thing seemed to Jones — and he 
could not but believe further evidence of his own 
185 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

eyes — it was even stranger to drive a train of mad 
dogs. Yet that was what Rea and he did, and lashed 
them, beat them to cover many miles in the long day’s 
journey. Rabies had broken out in several dogs so 
•alarmingly that Jones had to kill them at the end of 
the run. And hardly had the sound of the shots 
■died when faint and far away, but clear as a bell, 
bayed on the wind the same haunting mourn of a 
trailing wolf. 

“ Ho ! Hoi where are the wolves? ” cried Rea. 

A waiting, watching, sleepless night followed. 
Again the hunters faced the south. Hour after 
hour, riding, running, walking, they urged the poor, 
jaded, poisoned dogs. At dark they reached the 
head of Artillery Lake. Rea placed the tepee 
between two huge stones. Then the hungry hunters, 
tired, grim, silent, dejsperate, awaited the familiar 
cry. 

It came on the cold wind, the same haunting 
mourn, dreadful in its significance. 

Absence of fire inspirited the wary wolves. Out 
of the pale gloom gaunt white forms emerged, agile 
and stealthy, slipping on velvet-padded feet, closer, 
closer, closer. The dogs wailed in terror. 

‘‘ Into the tepee ! ” yelled Rea. 

Jones plunged in after his comrade. The despair- 
ing howls of the dogs, drowned in more savage, 
186 


Success and Failure 


frightful sounds, knelled one tragedy and foreboded 
a more terrible one. Jones looked out to see a white 
mass, like leaping waves of a rapid. 

“ Pump lead into thet! ” cried Rea. 

' Rapidly Jones emptied his rifle into the white 
fray. The mass split; gaunt wolves leaped high to 
fall back dead; others wriggled and limped away; 
others dragged their hind quarters; others darted 
at the tepee. 

“ No more cartridges ! ” yelled Jones. 

The giant grabbed the ax, and barred the door 
of the tepee. Crash! the heavy iron cleaved the 
skull of the first brute. Crash I it lamed the second. 
Then Rea stood in the narrow passage between the 
rocks, waiting with uplifted ax. A shaggy, white 
demon, snapping his jaws, sprang like a dog. A 
sodden, thudding blow met him and he slunk away 
without a cry. Another rabid beast launched his 
white body at the giant. Like a flash the ax 
descended. In agony the wolf fell, to spin round and 
^ round, running on his hind legs, while his head and 
, shoulders and forelegs remained in the snow. His 
back was broken. 

Jones crouched in the opening. of the tepee, knife 
in hand. He doubted his senses. This was a night- 
mare. He saw two wolves leap at once. He heard 
the crash of the ax; he saw one wolf go down and the 
187 


The Last of the Plamsmen 

other slip under the swinging weapon to grasp the 
giant’s hip. Jones’s heard the rend of cloth, and 
then he pounced like a cat, to drive his knife into the 
body of the beast. Another nimble foe lunged at 
Rea, to sprawl broken and limp from the iron. It 
was a silent fight. The giant shut the way to his 
comrade and the calves ; he made no outcry; he needed 
but one blow for every beast; magnificent, he wielded 
death and faced it — silent. He brought the white 
wild dogs of the north down with lightning blows, 
and when no more sprang to the attack, down on the 
frigid silence he rolled his cry: “ Ho! Ho! ” 

“ Rea! Rea! how is it with you?” called Jones, 
climbing out. 

“ A torn coat — no more, my lad.” 

Three of the poor dogs were dead; the fourth and 
last gasped at the hunters and died. 

The wintry night became a thing of half-conscious 
past, a dream to the hunters, manifesting its reality 
only by the stark, stiff bodies of wolves, white in 
the gray morning. 

“ If we can eat, we’ll make the cabin,” said Rea. 

But the dogs an’ wolves are poison.” 

“ Shall I kill a calf? ” asked Jones. 

“ Ho ! Ho ! when hell freezes over — if we must ! ” 

Jones found one 45-90 cartridge in all the outfit, 
and with that in the chamber of his rifle, once more 
188 


Success and Failure 


struck south. Spruce trees began to show on the 
barrens and caribou trails roused hope in the hearts 
of the hunters. 

“Look! in the spruces,” whispered Jones, drop- 
ping the rope of his sled. Among the black trees 
gray objects moved. 

“ Caribou I ” said Rea. “Hurry! Shoot! Don’t 
miss ! ” 

But Jones waited. He knew the value of the last 
bullet. He had a hunter’s patience. When the cari- 
bou came out in an open space, Jones whistled. It 
was then the rifle grew set and fixed ; it was then the 
red fire belched forth. 

At four hundred yards the bullet took some frac- 
tion of time to strike. What a long time that was ! 
Then both hunters heard the spiteful spat of the lead. 
The caribou fell, jumped up, ran down the slope, and 
fell again to rise no more. 

An hour of rest, with fire and meat, changed the 
world to the hunters; still glistening, it yet had lost 
its bitter cold, its deathlike clutch. 

“ What’s this? ” cried Jones. 

Moccasin tracks of different sizes, all toeing north, 
arrested the hunters. 

“Pointed north! Wonder what thet means?” 
Rea plodded on, doubtfully shaking his head. 

Night again, clear, cold, silver, starlit, silent 
189 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


night! The hunters rested, listening ever for the 
haunting mourn. Day again, white, passionless, 
monotonous, silent day 1 The hunters traveled on — 
on — on, ever listening for the haunting mourn. 

Another dusk found them within thirty miles of 
their cabin. Only one more day now. 

Rea talked of his furs, of the splendid white furs 
he could not bring. Jones talked of his little musk- 
oxen calves and joyfully watched them dig for moss 
in the snow. 

Vigilance relaxed that night. Outworn nature 
rebelled, and both hunters slept. 

Rea awoke first, and kicking off the blankets, went 
out. His terrible roar of rage made Jones fly to his 
side. 

Under the very shadow of the tepee, where the 
little musk-oxen had been tethered, they lay stretched 
out pathetically on crimson snow — stiff stone-cold, 
dead. Moccasin tracks told the story of the tragedy. 

Jones leaned against his comrade. 

The giant raised his huge fist. 

“Jackoway out of wood! Jackoway out of 
wood! ” 

Then he choked. 

The north wind, blowing through the thin, dark, 
weird spruce trees, moaned and seemed to sigh, 
“Naza! Naza! Naza!” 


190 


CHAPTER XI 


ON TO THE SIWASH 

THO all was doin’ the talkin’ last night? 
asked Frank next morning, when we 
^ ^ were having a late breakfast “ Cause 
I’ve a joke on somebody. Jim he talks In his sleep 
often, an’ last night after you did finally get settled 
down, Jim he up In his sleep an’ says : ‘ Shore he’s 
windy as hell I Shore he’s windy as hell ’ ! ” 

At this cruel exposure of his subjective wanderings, 
Jim showed extreme humiliation; but Frank’s eyes 
fairly snapped with the fun he got out of telling It 
The genial foreman loved a joke. The week’s stay 
at Oak, In which we all became thoroughly 
acquainted, had presented Jim as always the same 
quiet character, easy, slow, silent, lovable. In his 
brother cowboy, however, we had discovered In 
addition to his fine, frank, friendly spirit, an over- 
whelming fondness for playing tricks. This boyish 
mischievousness, distinctly Arizonian, reached Its 
acme whenever It tended in the direction of our 
serious leader. 

Lawson had been dispatched on some mysterious 
errand about which my curiosity was all In vain. 

191 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

The order of the day was leisurely to get in 
readiness, and pack for our journey to the Siwash 
on the morrow. I watered my horse, played with the 
hounds, knocked about the cliffs, returned to the 
cabin, and lay down on my bed. Jim’s hands were . 
white with flour. He was kneading dough, and had 
several low, flat pans on the table. Wallace and 
Jones strolled in, and later Frank, and they all took 
various positions before the fire. I saw Frank, with 
the quickness of a sleight-of-hand performer, slip 
one of the pans of dough on the chair Jones had 
placed by the table. Jim did not see the action; 
Jones’s and Wallace’s backs were turned to Frank, 
and he did not know I was in the cabin. The con- 
versation continued on the subject of Jones’s big bay 
horse, which, hobbles and all, had gotten ten miles 
from camp the night before. 

“ Better count his ribs than his tracks,” said 
Frank, and went on talking as easily and naturally 
as if he had not been expecting a very entertaining 
situation. 

But no one could ever foretell Colonel Jones’s ; 
actions. He showed every intention of seating him- ' 
self in the chair, then walked over to his pack to 
begin searching for something or other. Wallace, 
however, promptly took the seat; and what began 
to be funnier than strange, he did not get up. Not 

192 


On to the Smash 


unlikely this circumstance was owing to the fact 
that several of the rude chairs had soft layers of old 
blanket tacked on them. Whatever were Frank’s 
internal emotions, he presented a remarkably placid 
and commonplace exterior; but, when Jim began to 
search for the missing pan of dough, the joker slowly 
sagged in his chair. 

“ Shore that beats hell ! ” said Jim. “ I had three 
pans of dough. Could the pup have taken one? ” 

Wallace rose to his feet, and the bread pan clat- 
tered to the floor, with a clang and a clank, evidently 
protesting against the indignity it had suffered. 
But the dough stayed with Wallace, a great 
white conspicuous splotch on his corduroys. Jim, 
Frank and Jones all saw it at once. 

“ Why — Mr. Wal — lace — you set — in the 
dough!” exclaimed Frank, in a queer, strangled 
voice. 'Then he exploded, while Jim fell over the 
table. 

It seemed that those two Arizona rangers, 
matured men though they were, would die of convul- 
sions. I laughed with them, and so did Wallace, 
while he brought his bone-handled bowie knife into 
novel use. Buffalo Jones never cracked a smile, 
though he did remark about the waste of good flour. 

Frank’s face was a study for a psychologist when 
Jim actually apologized to Wallace for being so care- 
193 


' The Last of the Plainsmen 


less with his pans. I did not betray Frank, but I 
resolved to keep a still closer watch on him. It was 
partially because of this uneasy sense of his trickiness 
in the fringe of my mind that I made a discovery. 
My sleeping-bag rested on a raised platform in one 
corner, and at a favorable moment I examined the 
bag. It had not been tampered with, but I noticed 
a string running out through a chink between the 
logs. I found it came from a thick layer of straw 
under my bed, and had been tied to the end of a 
flatly coiled lasso. Leaving the thing as it was, I 
went outside and carelessly chased the hounds round 
the cabin. The string stretched along the logs to 
another chink, where it returned into the cabin at a 
point near where Frank slept. No great power of 
deduction was necessary to acquaint me with full 
details of the plot to spoil my slumbers. So I 
patiently awaited developments. 

Lawson rode in near sundown with the carcasses 
of two beasts of some species hanging over his sad- 
dle. It turned out that Jones had planned a surprise 
for Wallace and me, and it could hardly have been 
a more enjoyable one, considering the time and place. 
We knew he had a flock of Persian sheep on the 
south slope of Buckskin, but had no idea it was 
within striking distance of Oak. Lawson had that 
day hunted up the shepherd and his sheep, to return 

194 


On to the Siwash 


to us with two sixty-pound Persian lambs. We 
feasted at suppertime on meat which was sweet, juicy, 
very tender and of as rare a flavor as that of the 
Rocky Mountain sheep. 

My state after supper was one of huge enjoyment, 
and with intense interest I awaited Frank’s first spar 
for an opening. It came presently, in a lull of the 
conversation. 

“ Saw a big rattler run under the cabin to-day,” 
he said, as if he were speaking of one of Old Baldy’s 
shoes. “ I tried to get a whack at him, but he oozed 
away too quick.” 

“ Shore I seen him often,” put in Jim. Good, 
old, honest Jim, led away by his trickster comrade I 
It was very plain. So I was to be frightened by 
snakes. 

“ These old canon beds are Ideal dens for rattle- 
snakes,” chimed In my scientific California friend. 
“ I have found several dens, but did not molest them, 
as this Is a particularly dangerous time of the year to 
meddle with the reptiles. Quite likely there’s a den 
under the cabin.” 

While he made this remarkable statement, he had 
the grace to hide his face In a huge puff of smoke. 
He, too, was In the plot. I waited for Jones to come 
out with some ridiculous theory or fact concerning 
the particular species of snake, but as he did not 
195 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


speak, I concluded they had wisely left him out of 
the secret. After mentally debating a moment, I 
decided, as It was a very harmless joke, to help Frank 
to the fulfillment of his enjoyment. 

“Rattlesnakes!’’ I exclaimed. “Heavens! I’d 
die if I heard one, let alone seeing It. A big rattler 
jumped at me one day, and I’ve never recovered from 
the shock.” 

Plainly, Frank was delighted to hear of my antipa- 
thy and my unfortunate experience, and he proceeded 
to expatiate on the viciousness of rattlesnakes, partic- 
ularly those of Arizona. If I had believed the 
succeeding stories, emanating from the fertile brains 
of those three fellows, I should have made certain 
that Arizona canons were Brazilian jungles. Frank’s 
parting shot, sent In a mellow, kind voice, was the 
best point In the whole trick. “ Now, I’d be nervous 
if I had a sleepln’-^bag like yours, because It’s just 
the place for a rattler to ooze Into.” 

In the confusion and dim light of bedtime I con- 
trived to throw the end of my lasso over the horn of 
a saddle hanging on the wall, with the Intention of 
augmenting the noise I soon expected to create; and 
I placed my automatic rifle and .38 S. and W. Special 
within easy reach of my hand. Then I crawled Into 
my bag and composed myself to listen. Frank soon 
began to snore, so brazenly, so fictitiously, that I 
196 


On to the Siwash 


wondered at the man’s absorbed intensity in his 
joke; and I was at great pains to smother in my 
breast a violent burst of riotous merriment Jones’s 
snores, however, were real enough, and this made 
me enjoy the situation all the more; because if he 
did not show a mild surprise when the catastrophe 
fell, I would greatly miss my guess. I knew the 
three wily conspirators were wide-awake. Suddenly 
I felt a movement in the straw under me and a faint 
rustling. It was so soft, so sinuous, that if I had 
not known it was the lasso, I would assuredly have 
been frightened. I gave a little jump, such as one 
will make quickly in bed. Then the coil ran out 
from under the straw. How subtly suggestive of a 
snake ! I made a slight outcry, a big jump, paused 
a moment for effectiveness — in which time Frank 
forgot to snore — then let out a tremendous yell, 
grabbed my guns, sent twelve thundering shots 
through the roof and pulled my lasso. 

Crash ! the saddle came down, to be followed by 
sounds not on Frank’s programme and certainly not 
calculated upon by me. But they were all the more 
effective. I gathered that Lawson, who was not in 
the secret, and who was a nightmare sort of sleeper 
anyway, had knocked over Jim’s table, with its array 
of pots and pans and then, unfortunately for Jones, 
had kicked that innocent person in the stomach. 

197 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


As I lay there in my bag, the very happiest fellow 
in the wide world, the sound of my mirth was as the 
buzz of the wings of a fly to the mighty storm. Roar 
on roar filled the cabin. 

When the three hypocrites recovered sufficiently 
from the startling climax to calm Lawson, who 
sv/ore the cabin had been attacked by Indians ; when 
Jones stopped roaring long enough to hear it was 
only a harmless snake that had caused the trouble, 
we hushed to repose once more — not, however, with- 
out hearing some trenchant remarks from the boiling 
Colonel anent fun and fools, and the indubitable fact 
that there was not a rattlesnake on Buckskin 
Mountain. 

Long after this explosion had died away, I heard, 
or rather felt, a mysterious shudder or tremor 
of the cabin, and I knew that Frank and Jim were 
shaking with silent laughter. On my own score, I 
determined to find if Jones, in his strange make-up, 
had any sense of humor, or interest in life, or feeling, 
or love that did not center and hinge on four-footed 
beasts. In view of the rude awakening from what, 
no doubt, were pleasant dreams of wonderful white 
and green animals, combining the intelligence of man 
and strength of brutes — a new species creditable to 
his genius — I was perhaps unjust in my conviction 
as to his lack of humor. And as to the other ques- 
198 


On to the Siwash 


tion, whether or not he had any real human feeling 
for the creatures built in his own image, that was 
decided very soon and unexpectedly. 

The following morning, as soon as Lawson got in 
with the horses, we packed and started. Rather 
sorry was I to bid good»by to Oak Spring. Taking 
the back trail of the Stewarts, we walked the horses 
all day up a slowly narrowing, ascending canon. The 
hounds crossed coyote and deer trails continually, hut 
made no break. Sounder looked up as if to say he 
associated painful reminiscences with certain kinds 
of tracks. At the head of the canon we reached 
timber at about the time dusk gathered, and we 
located for the night. Being once again nearly nine 
thousand feet high, we found the air bitterly cold, 
making a blazing fire most acceptable. 

In the haste to get supper we all took a hand, and 
some one threw upon our tarpaulin tablecloth a tin 
cup of butter mixed with carbolic acid — a concoction 
Jones had used to bathe the sore feet of the dogs. 
Of course I got hold of this, spread a generous por- 
tion on my hot biscuit, placed some red-hot beans on 
that, and began to eat like a hungry hunter. At first 
I thought I was only burned. Then I recognized 
the taste and burn of the acid and knew something 
was wrong. Picking up the tin, I examined it, 
smelled the pungent odor, and felt a queer, numb 
199 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

sense of fear. This lasted only for a moment, as I 
well knew the use and power of the acid, and had 
not swallowed enough to hurt me. I was about to 
make known my mistake in a matter-of-fact way, 
when it flashed over me the accident could be made 
to serve a turn. 

“Jones I” I cried hoarsely. “What’s in this 
butter? ” 

“ Lord ! you haven’t eaten any of that. Why, I 
put carbolic acid in it.” 

“ Oh — oh — oh — I’m poisoned ! I ate nearly all 
of it I Oh — I’m burning up! I’m dying! ” With 
that I began to moan and rock to and fro and hold 
my stomach. 

Consternation preceded shock. But in the excite- 
ment of the moment, Wallace — who, though badly 
scared, retained his wits — made for me with a can 
of condensed milk. He threw me back with no 
gentle hand, and was squeezing the life out of me 
to make me open my mouth, when I gave him a jab 
in his side. I imagined his surprise, as this peculiar 
reception of his first-aid-to-the-injured made him 
hold off to take a look at me, and in this interval I 
contrived to whisper to him : “ Joke ! Joke ! you idiot ! 
I’m only shamming. I want to see if I can scare 
Jones and get even with Frank. Help me out! 
Cry! Get tragic!” 


200 


On to the Siwash 


From that moment I shall always believe that the 
«tage lost a great tragedian in Wallace. With a 
magnificent gesture he threw the can of condensed 
milk at Jones, who was so stunned he did not try to 
dodge. “Thoughtless man! Murderer! it’s too 
late!” cried Wallace, laying me back across his 
knees. “ It’s too late. His teeth are locked. He’s 
far gone. Poor boy! poor boy! Who’s to tell his 
mother? ” 

I could see from under my hat-brim that the 
solemn, hollow voice had penetrated the cold exterior 
of the plainsman. He could not speak; he clasped 
and unclasped his big hands in helpless fashion. 
Frank was as white as a sheet. This was simply 
delightful to me. But the expression of miserable, 
impotent distress on old Jim’s sun-browned face was 
more than I could stand, and I could no longer keep 
up the deception. Just as Wallace cried out to Jones 
to pray — I wished then I had not weakened so 
soon — I got up and walked to the fire. 

“ Jim, I’ll have another biscuit, please.” 

His under jaw dropped, then he nervously shov- 
eled biscuits at me. Jones grabbed my hand and 
cried out with a voice that was new to me: “You 
can eat? You’re better? You’ll get over it? ” 

“ Sure. Why, carbolic acid never phases me. I’ve 
often used it for rattlesnake bites. I did not tell 
201 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


you, but that rattler at the cabin last night actually 
bit me, and I used carbolic to cure the poison.” 

Frank mumbled something about horses, and 
faded into the gloom. As for Jones, he looked at 
me rather incredulously, and the absolute, almost 
childish gladness he manifested because I had been 
snatched from the grave, made me regret my deceit, 
and satisfied me forever on one score. 

On awakening in the morning I found frost half 
an inch thick covered my sleeping-bag, whitened the 
ground, and made the beautiful silver spruce trees 
silver in hue as well as in name. 

We were getting ready for an early start, when 
two riders, with pack-horses jogging after them, 
came down the trail from the direction of Oak Spring. 
They proved to be Jeff Clarke, the wild-horse wran- 
gler mentioned by the Stewarts, and his helper. 
They were on the way into the breaks for a string of 
pintos. Clarke was a short, heavily bearded man, of 
jovial aspect. He said he had met the Stewarts going 
into Fredonia, and being advised of our destination, 
had hurried to come up with us. As we did not 
know, except in a general way, where we were making 
for, the meeting was a fortunate event. 

Our camping site had been close to the divide 
made by one of the long, wooded ridges sent off by 
Buckskin Mountain, and soon we were descending 
202 


On to the Siwash 


again. We rode half a mile down a timbered slope, 
and then out into a beautiful, flat forest of gigantic 
pines. Clarke informed us it was a level bench some 
ten miles long, running out from the slopes of Buck- 
skin to face the Grand Canon on the south, and the 
breaks of the Siwash on the west. For two hours 
we rode between the stately lines of trees, and the 
hoofs of the horses gave forth no sound. A long, 
silvery grass, sprinkled with smiling bluebells, cov- 
ered the ground, except close under the pines, where 
soft red mats invited lounging and rest. We saw 
numerous deer, great gray mule deer, almost as large 
as elk. Jones said they had been crossed with elk 
once, which accounted for their size. I did not see 
a stump, or a burned tree, or a windfall during the 
ride. 

Clarke led us to the rim of the canon. Without 
any preparation — for the giant trees hid the open 
sky — we rode right out to the edge of the tremendous 
chasm. At first I did not seem to think ; my faculties 
were benumbed; only the pure sensorial instinct of 
the savage who sees, but does not feel, made me take 
note of the abyss. Not one of our party had ever 
seen the canon from this side, and not one of us said 
a word. But Clarke kept talking. 

‘‘ Wild place this is hyar,” he said. “ Seldom any 
one but horse wranglers gits over this far. IVe hed 
203 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


a bunch of wild pintos down in a canon below fer 
two years. I reckon you can’t find no better place 
fer camp than right hyar. Listen. Do you hear thet 
rumble? Thet’s Thunder Falls. You can only see 
It from one place, an’ thet far off, but thar’s brooks 
you can git at to water the bosses. Fer thet matter, 
you can ride up the slopes an’ git snow. If you can 
git snow close, it’d be better, fer thet’s an all-fired bad 
trail down fer w^ater.” 

‘‘ Is this the cougar country the Stewarts talked 
about? ” asked Jones. 

‘‘ Reckon it Is. Cougars is as thick In hyar as 
rabbits In a spring-hole canon. I’m on the way 
now to bring up my pintos. The cougars hev cost 
me hundreds — I might say thousands of dollars. I 
lose bosses all the time; an’ damn me, gentlemen, I’ve 
never raised a colt. This Is the greatest cougar coun- 
try In the West. Look at those yellow crags ! Thar’s 
where the cougars stay. No one ever hunted ’em. It 
seems to me they can’t be hunted. Deer and wild 
bosses by the thousand browse hyar on the mountain 
In summer, an’ down In the breaks In winter. The 
cougars live fat. You’ll find deer and wlld-hoss 
carcasses all over this country. You’ll find lions’s 
dens full of bones. You’ll find warm deer left for 
the coyotes. But whether you’ll find the cougars, I 
can’t say. I fetched dogs In hyar, an’ tried to ketch 


On to the Siwash 


Old Tom. I’ve put them on his trail an’ never saw 
hide nor hair of them again. Jones, it’s no easy 
huntin’ hyar.” 

“ Well, I can see that,” replied our leader. “ I 
never hunted lions in such a country, and never knew 
any one who had. We’ll have to learn how. We’ve 
the time and the dogs, all we need is the stuff in us.” 

“ I hope you fellars git some cougars, an’ I believe 
you will. Whatever you do, kill Old Tom.” 

“ We’ll catch him alive. We’re not on a hunt to 
kill cougars,” said Jones. 

“ What ! ” exclaimed Clarke, looking from Jones 
to us. His rugged face wore a half-smile. 

“ Jones ropes cougars, an’ ties them up,” replied 
Frank. 

“ I’m if he’ll ever rope Old Tom,” 

burst out Clarke, ejecting a huge quid of tobacco. 
“ Why, man alive ! it’d be the death of you to git 
near thet old villain. I never seen him, but I’ve 
seen his tracks fer five years. They’re larger 
than any boss tracks you ever seen. He’ll weigh 
over three hundred, thet old cougar. Hyar, take 
a look at my man’s boss. Look at his back. See 
them marks? Wal, Old Tom made them, an’ he 
made them right in camp last fall, when we were 
down in the canon.” 

The mustang to which Clarke called our attention 
205 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


was a sleek cream and white pinto. Upon his side 
and back were long regular scars, some an inch wide, 
and bare of hair. 

“ How on earth did he get rid of the cougar? ” 
asked Jones. 

“ I don’t know. Perhaps he got scared of the 
dogs. It took thet pinto a year to git well. Old 
Tom is a real lion. He’ll kill a full-grown boss when 
he wants, but a yearlin’ colt is his especial likin’. 
You’re sure to run acrost his trail, an’ you’ll never 
miss it. Wal, if I find any cougar sign down in the 
canon. I’ll build two fires so as to let you know. 
Though no hunter. I’m tolerably acquainted with the 
varmints. The deer an’ bosses are rangin’ the forest 
slopes now, an’ I think the cougars come up over 
the rim rock at night an’ go back in the mornin’. 
Anyway, if your dogs can follow the trails, you’ve got 
sport, an’ morc’n sport cornin’ to you. But take it 
from me — don’t try to rope Old Tom.” 

After all our disappointments in the beginning of 
the expedition, our hardship on the desert, our trials 
with the dogs and horses, it was real pleasure to make 
permanent camp with wood, water and feed at hand, 
a soul-stirring, ever-changing picture before us, and 
the certainty that we were in the wild lairs of the 
lions — among the Lords of the Crags! 

While we were unpacking, every now and then I 
206 


On to the Siwash 


would straighten up and gaze out beyond. I knew 
the outlook was magnificent and sublime beyond 
words, but as yet I had not begun to understand it. 
The great pine trees, growing to the very edge of 
the rim, received their full quota of appreciation 
from me, as did the smooth, flower-decked aisles 
leading back into the forest. 

The location we selected for camp was a large 
glade, fifty paces or more from the precipice — far 
enough, the cowboys averred, to keep our traps from 
being sucked down by some of the whirlpool winds, 
native to the spot. In the center of this glade stood 
a huge gnarled and blasted old pine, that certainly 
by virtue of hoary locks and bent shoulders had 
earned the right to stand aloof from his younger com- 
panions. Under this tree we placed all our belong- 
ings, and then, as Frank so felicitously expressed it, 
we were free to “ ooze round an’ see things.” 

I believe I had a sort of subconscious, selfish idea 
that some one would steal the canon away from me if 
I did not hurry to make it mine forever ; so I sneaked 
off, and sat under a pine growing on the very rim. 
At first glance, I saw below me, seemingly miles 
away, a wild chaos of red and buff mesas rising out 
of dark purple clefts. Beyond these reared a long, 
irregular tableland, running south almost to the 
extent of my vision, which I remembered Clarke had 
207 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


called Powell’s Plateau. I remembered, also, that 
he had said It was twenty miles distant, was almost 
that many miles long, was connected to the mainland 
of Buckskin Mountain by a very narrow wooded dip 
of land called the Saddle, and that it practically shut 
us out of a view of the Grand Canon proper. If 
that was true, what, then, could be the name of the 
canon at my feet? Suddenly, as my gaze wandered 
from point to point, it was arrested by a dark, conical 
mountain, white-tipped, which rose in the notch of 
the Saddle. What could it mean? Were there such 
things as canon mirages? Then the dim purple of' 
its color told of its great distance from me ; and then 
its familiar shape told I had come into my own 
again — I had found my old friend once more. For 
in all that plateau there was only one snow-capped 
mountain — the San Francisco Peak; and there, a hun- 
dred and fifty, perhaps two hundred miles away, far 
beyond the Grand Canon, it smiled brightly at me, 
as it had for days and days across the desert. 

Hearing Jones yelling for somebody or everybody, 
I jumped up to find a procession heading for a point 
farther down the rim wall, where our leader stood 
waving his arms. The excitement proved to have 
been caused by cougar signs at the head of the trail 
where Clarke had started down. 

“ They’re here, boys, they’re here,” Jones kept 
208 


On to the Siwash 


repeating, as he showed us different tracks. “ This 
sign is not so old. Boys, to-morrow we’ll get up a 
lion, sure as you’re born. And if we do, and Sounder 
sees him, then we’ve got a lion-dog! I’m afraid of 
Don. He has a fine nose; he can run and fight, but 
he’s been trained to deer, and maybe I can’t break 
him. Moze is still uncertain. If old Jude only 
hadn’t been lamed 1 She would be the best of the lot. 
But Sounder is our hope. I’m almost ready to swear 
by him.” 

All this was too much for me, so I slipped off again 
to be alone, and this time headed for the forest. 
Warm patches of sunlight, like gold, brightened the 
ground ; dark patches of sky, like ocean blue, gleamed 
between the treetops. Hardly a rustle of wind in 
the fine-toothed green branches disturbed the quiet. 
When I got fully out of sight of camp, I started to 
run as if I were a wild Indian. My running had no 
aim ; just sheer mad joy of the grand old forest, the 
smell of pine, the wild silence and beauty loosed the 
spirit in me so it had to run, and I ran with it till 
the physical being failed. 

While resting on a fragrant bed of pine needles, 
endeavoring to regain control over a truant mind, 
trying to subdue the encroaching of the natural man 
on the civilized man, I saw gray objects moving under 
the trees. I lost them, then saw them, and presently 
209 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


so plainly that, with delight on delight, I counted 
seventeen deer pass through an open arch of dark 
green. Rising to my feet, I ran to get round a low 
mound. They saw me and bounded away with 
prodigiously long leaps. Bringing their forefeet 
together, stiff-legged under them, they bounced high, 
like rubber balls, yet they were graceful. 

The forest was so open that I could watch them 
for a long way; and as I circled with my gaze, a 
glimpse of something white arrested my attention. 
A light, grayish animal appeared to be tearing at 
an old stump. Upon nearer view, I recognized a 
wolf, and he scented or sighted me at the same 
moment, and loped off into the shadows of the trees. 
Approaching the spot where I had marked him I 
found he had been feeding from the carcass of a 
horse. The remains had been only partly eaten, and 
were of an animal of the mustang build that had 
evidently been recently killed. Frightful lacerations 
under the throat showed where a lion had taken fatal 
hold. Deep furrows in the ground proved how the . 
mustang had sunk his hoofs, reared and shaken him- 
self. I traced roughly defined tracks fifty paces to 
the lee of a little bank, from which I concluded the 
lion had sprung. 

I gave free rein to my imagination and saw the 
forest dark, silent, peopled by none but Its savage 
210 


On to the Smash 


denizens. The lion crept like a shadow, crouched 
noiselessly down, then leaped on his sleeping or 
browsing prey. The lonely night stillness split to a 
frantic snort and scream of terror, and the stricken 
mustang with his mortal enemy upon his back, dashed 
off with fierce, wild love of life. As he went he felt 
his foe crawl toward his neck on claws of fire ; he saw 
the tawny body and the gleaming eyes; then the 
cruel teeth snapped with the sudden bite, and the 
woodland tragedy ended. 

On the spot I conceived an antipathy toward lions. 
It was born of the frightful spectacle of what had 
once been a glossy, prancing mustang, of the mute, 
sickening proof of the survival of the fittest, of the 
law that levels life. 

Upon telling my camp-fellows about my discovery, 
Jones and Wallace walked out to see it, while Jim 
told me the wolf I had seen was a “ lofer,” one of the 
giant buffalo wolves of Buckskin; and if I would 
watch the carcass in the mornings and evenings, I 
would “ shore as hell get a plunk at him.” 

White pine burned in a beautiful, clear blue flame, 
with no smoke ; and in the center of the campfire left 
a golden heart. But Jones would not have any sit- 
ting up, and hustled us off to bed, saying we would 
be “ blamed ” glad of it in about fifteen hours. I 
crawled into my sleeping-bag, made a hood of my 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

Navajo blanket, and peeping from under it, watched 
the fire and the flickering shadows. The blaze burned 
down rapidly. Then the stars blinked. Arizona 
stars would be moons in any other State! How 
serene, peaceful, august, infinite and wonderfully 
bright! No breeze stirred the pines. The clear 
tinkle of the cowbells on the hobbled horses rang 
from near and distant parts of the forest. The 
prosaic bell of the meadow and the pasture brook, 
here, in this environment, jingled out different notes, 
as clear, sweet, musical as silver bells. 


CHAPTER XII 


OLD TOM 


daybreak our leader routed us out. The 



frost mantled the ground so heavily that it 


looked like snow, and the rare atmosphere 
bit like the breath of winter. The forest stood 
solemn and gray; the canon lay wrapped in vapory 
slumber. 

Hot biscuits and coffee, with a chop or two of the 
delicious Persian lamb meat, put a less Spartan tinge 
on the morning, and gave Wallace and me more 
strength — we needed not incentive — to leave the fire, 
hustle our saddles on the horses and get in line with 
our impatient leader. The hounds scampered over 
the frost, shoving their noses at the tufts of grass 
and bluebells. Lawson and Jim remained in camp; 
the rest of us trooped southwest. 

A mile or so in that direction, the forest of pine 
ended abruptly, and a wide belt of low, scrubby oak 
trees, breast high to a horse, fringed the rim of the 
canon and appeared to broaden out and grow wavy 
southward. The edge of the forest was as dark and 
regular as if a band of woodchoppers had trimmed 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

it. We threaded our way through this thicket, all 
' peering into the bisecting deer trails for cougar tracks 
in the dust. 

“Bring the dogs! Hurry!” suddenly called 
Jones from a thicket. 

We lost no time complying, and found him stand- 
ing in a trail, with his eyes on the sand. “ Take a 
look, boys. A good-sized male cougar passed here 
last night. Hyar, Sounder, Don, Moze, come on ! ” 

It was a nervous, excited pack of hounds. Old 
Jude got to Jones first, and she sang out; then 
Sounder opened with his ringing bay, and before 
Jones could mount, a string of yelping dogs sailed 
straight for the forest. 

“ Ooze along, boys ! ” yelled Frank, wheeling 
Spot. 

With the cowboy leading, we strung into the pines, 
and I found myself behind. Presently even Wallace 
disappeared. I almost threw the reins at Satan, and 
yelled for him to go. The result enlightened me. 
Like an arrow from a bow, the black shot forward. 
Frank had told me of his speed, that when he found 
his stride it was like riding a flying feather to be on 
him. Jones, fearing he would kill me, had cautioned 
me always to hold him in, which I had done. Satan 
stretched out with long, graceful motions; he did not 
turn aside for logs, but cleared them with easy and 


Old Tom 


powerful spring, and he swerved only slightly for 
the trees. This latter, I saw at once, made the dan- 
ger for me. It became a matter of saving my legs, 
and dodging branches. The imperative need of this 
came to me with convincing force. I dodged a 
branch on one tree, only to be caught square in the 
middle by a snag on another. Crack! If the snag 
had not broken, Satan would have gone on riderless, 
and I would have been left hanging, a pathetic and 
drooping monition to the risks of the hunt. I kept 
ducking my head, now and then falling flat over the 
pommel to avoid a limb that would have brushed me 
ofF, and hugging the flanks of my horse with my 
knees. Soon I was at Wallace’s heels, and had Jones 
in sight. Now and then glimpses of Frank’s white 
horse gleamed through the trees. 

We began to circle toward the south, to go up and 
down shallow hollows, to find the pines thinning out ; 
then wc shot out of the forest into the scrubby oak. 
Riding through this brush was the cruelest kind of 
work, but Satan kept on close to the sorrel. The 
hollows began to get deeper, and the ridges between 
them narrower. No longer could we keep a straight 
course. 

On the crest of one of the ridges we found Jones 
awaiting us. Jude, Tige and Don lay panting at his 
feet. Plainly the Colonel appeared vexed. 

215 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

“ Listen,” he said, when we reined in. 

We complied, but did not hear a sound. 

“ Frank’s beyond there some place,” continued 
Jones, “ but I can’t see him, nor hear the hounds any 
more. Don and Tige split again on deer trails. Old 
Jude hung on the lion track, but I stopped her here. 
There’s something I can’t figure. Moze held a bee- 
line southwest, and he yelled seldom. Sounder 
gradually stopped baying. Maybe Frank can tell 
us something.” 

Jones’s long drawn-out signal was answered from 
the direction he expected, and after a little time, 
Frank’s white horse shone out of the gray-green of a 
ridge a mile away. 

This drew my attention to our position. We were 
on a high ridge out in the open, and I could see fifty 
miles of the shaggy slopes of Buckskin. Southward 
the gray, ragged line seemed to stop suddenly, and 
beyond it purple haze hung over a void I knew to 
be the canon. And facing west, I came, at last, to 
understand perfectly the meaning of the breaks in 
the Siwash. They were nothing more than ravines 
that headed up on the slopes and ran down, getting 
deeper and steeper, though scarcely wider, to break 
Into the canon. Knife-crested ridges rolled westward, 
wave on wave, like the billows of a sea. I appre- 
ciated that these breaks were, at their sources, little 
216 


Old Tom 


washes easy to jump across, and at their mouths a 
mile deep and impassable. Huge pine trees shaded 
these gullies, to give way to the gray growth of 
stunted oak, which in turn merged into the dark 
green of pihon. A wonderful country for deer and 
lions, it seemed to me, but impassable, all but impossi- 
ble for a hunter. 

Frank soon appeared, brushing through the bend- 
ing oaks, and Sounder trotted along behind him. 

“ Where’s Moze? ” inquired Jones. 

“ The last I heard of Moze he was out of the 
brush, goin’ across the pihon flat, right for the canon. 
He had a hot trail.” 

“Well, we’re certain of one thing; if it was a 
deer, he won’t come back soon, and if it was a lion, 
he’ll tree it, lose the scent, and come back. We’ve 
got to show the hounds a lion in a tree. They’d run 
a hot trail, bump into a tree, and then be at fault. 
What was wrong with Sounder? ” 

“ I don’t know. He came back to me.” 

“ We can’t trust him, or any of them yet. Still 
maybe they’re doing better than we know.” 

The outcome of the chase, so favorably started, 
was a disappointment, which we all felt keenly. 
After some discussion, we turned south, intending 
to ride down to the rim wall and follow it back to 
I happened to turn once, perhaps to look 
217 


camp. 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

again at the far-distant pink cliffs of Utah, or the 
wave-like dome of Trumbull Mountain, when I saw 
Moze trailing close behind me. My yell halted the 
Colonel. 

“ Well, I’ll be darned! ” ejaculated he, as Moze 
hove in sight. “ Come hyar, you rascal 1 ” 

He was a tired dog, but had no sheepish air about 
him, such as he had worn when lagging in from deer 
chases. He wagged his tail, and flopped down to 
pant and pant, as if to say: “What’s wrong with 
you guys? ” 

“ Boys, for two cents I’d go back and put Jude 
on that trail. It’s just possible that Moze treed a 
lion. But — well, I expect there’s more likelihood of 
his chasing the lion over the rim ; so we may as well 
keep on. The strange thing is that Sounder wasn’t 
with Moze. There may have been two lions. You 
see we are up a tree ourselves. I have known lions 
to run In pairs, and also a mother keep four two-year- 
olds with her. But such cases are rare. Here, In 
this country, though, maybe they run round and have 
parties.” 

As we left the breaks behind we got out upon a 
level pihon flat. A few cedars grew with the pihons. 
Deer runways and trails were thick. 

“ Boys, look at that,” said Jones. “ This is great 
lion country, the best I ever saw.” 

218 


Old Tom 


He pointed to the sunken, red, shapeless remains 
of two horses, and near them a ghastly scattering of 
bleached bones. “ A lion-lair right here on the flat. 
Those two horses were killed early this spring, and 
I see no signs of their carcasses having been covered 
with brush and dirt. I’ve got to learn lion lore over 
again, that’s certain.” 

As we paused at the head of a depression, which 
appeared to be a gap in the rim wall, filled with 
massed pinons and splintered piles of yellow stone, I 
caught Sounder going through some interesting 
moves. Fie stopped to smell a bush. Then he lifted 
his head, and electrified me with a great, deep- 
sounding bay. 

“Hi! there, listen to that!” yelled Jones. 
“ What’s Sounder got? Give him room — don’t run 
him down. Easy now, old dog, easy, easy! ” 

Sounder suddenly broke down a trail. Moze 
howled, Don barked, and Tige let out his staccato 
yelp. They ran through the brush here, there, every- 
where. Then all at once old Jude chimed in with 
her mellow voice, and Jones tumbled off his horse. 

“ By the Lord Harry ! There’s something here.” 

“ Here, Colonel, here’s the bush Sounder smelt, 
and there’s a sandy trail under it,” I called. 

“ There go Don an’ Tige down into the break,” 
cried Frank. “ They’ve got a hot scent! ” 

219 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


Jones stooped over the place I designated, to jerk 
up with reddening face, and as he flung himself into 
the saddle roared out: “ After Sounder ! Old Tom ! 
Old Tom! Old Tom!” 

We all heard Sounder, and at the moment of 
Jones’s discovery, Moze got the scent and plunged 
ahead of us. 

‘‘ Hi ! Hi ! Hi ! Hi ! ” yelled the Colonel. Frank 
sent Spot forward like a white streak. Sounder 
called to us in irresistible bays, which Moze 
answered, and then crippled Jude bayed in baffled, 
impotent distress. 

The atmosphere was charged with that lion. As 
if by magic, the excitation communicated itself to all, 
and men, horses and dogs acted in accord. The ride 
through the forest had been a jaunt. This was a 
steeplechase, a mad, heedless, perilous, glorious race. 
And we had for a pacemaker a cowboy mounted on a 
tireless mustang. 

Always it seemed to me, while the wind rushed, the 
brush whipped, I saw Frank far ahead, sitting his 
saddle as if glued there, holding his reins loosely 
forward. To see him ride so was a beautiful sight. 
Jones let out his Comanche yell at every dozen jumps, 
and Wallace sent back a thrilling “Waa-hoo-o!” 
In the excitement I had again checked my horse, and 
when I remembered, and loosed the bridle, how the 
220 


Old Tom 


noble animal responded! The pace he settled into 
dazed me; I could hardly distinguish the deer trail 
down which he was thundering. I lost my comrades 
ahead; the pihon blurred in my sight; I only faintly 
heard the hounds. It occurred to me we were making 
for the breaks, but I did not think of checking Satan. 
I thought only of flying on faster and faster. 

“ On! On! old fellow! Stretch out! Never lose 
this race ! We’ve got to be there at the finish ! ” I 
called to Satan, and he seemed to understand and 
stretched lower, farther, quicker. 

The brush pounded my legs and clutched and tore 
my clothes; the wind whistled; the pihon branches 
cut and whipped my face. Once I dodged to the left, 
as Satan swerved to the right, with the result that I 
flew out of the saddle, and crashed into a pihon tree, 
which marvelously brushed me back into the saddle. 
The wild yells and deep bays sounded nearer. Satan 
tripped and plunged down, throwing me as grace- 
fully as an aerial tumbler wings his flight. I alighted 
in a bush, without feeling of scratch or pain. As 
Satan recovered and ran past, I did not seek to make 
him stop, but getting a good grip on the pommel, I 
vaulted up again. Once more he raced like a wild 
mustang. And from nearer and nearer in front 
pealed the alluring sounds of the chase. 

Satan was creeping close to Wallace and Jones, 
221 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


with Frank looming white through the occasional 
pihons. Then all dropped out of sight, to appear 
again suddenly. They had reached the first break. 
Soon I was upon it. Two deer ran out of the ravine, 
almost brushing my horse in the haste. Satan went 
down and up in a few giant strides. Only the narrow 
ridge separated us from another break. It was up 
and down then for Satan, a work to which he man- 
fully set himself. Occasionally I saw Wallace and 
Jones, but heard them oftener. All the time the 
breaks grew deeper, till finally Satan had to zigzag 
his way down and up. Discouragement fastened on 
me, when from the summit of the next ridge I saw 
Frank far down the break, with Jones and Wallace 
not a quarter of a mile away from him. I sent out 
a long, exultant yell as Satan crashed into the hard, 
dry wash in the bottom of the break. 

I knew from the way he quickened under me that 
he intended to overhaul somebody. Perhaps because 
of the clear going, or because my frenzy had cooled 
to a thrilling excitement which permitted detail, I saw 
clearly and distinctly the speeding horsemen down' 
the ravine. I picked out the smooth pieces of ground 
ahead, and with the slightest touch of the rein on his 
neck, guided Satan into them. How he ran! The 
light, quick beats of his hoofs were regular, pound- 
ing. Seeing Jones and Wallace sail high into the air, 
222 


Old Tom 


I knew they had jumped a ditch. Thus prepared, I 
managed to stick on when it yawned before me ; and 
Satan, never slackening, leaped up and up, giving me 
a new swing. 

Dust began to settle in little clouds before me; 
Frank, far ahead, had turned his mustang up the side 
of the break; Wallace, within hailing distance, now 
turned to wave me a hand. The rushing wind fairly 
sang in my ears ; the walls of the break were confused 
blurs of yellow and green; at every stride Satan 
seemed to swallow a rod of the white trail. 

Jones began to scale the ravine, heading up 
obliquely far on the side of where Frank had van- 
ished, and as Wallace followed suit, I turned Satan. 
I caught Wallace at the summit, and we raced 
together out upon another flat of pihon. We heard 
Frank and Jones yelling in a way that caused us to 
spur our horses frantically. Spot, gleaming white 
near a clump of green pmons, was our guiding star. 
That last quarter of a mile was a ringing run, a ride 
to remember. 

As our mounts crashed back with stiff forelegs and 
haunches, Wallace and I leaped off and darted into 
the clump of pihons, whence issued a hair-raising 
medley of yells and barks. I saw Jones, then Frank, 
both waving their arms, then Moze and Sounder 
running wildly, aimlessly about. 

223 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

“Look there!” rang in my ear, and Jones 
smashed me on the back with a blow, which at any 
ordinary time would have laid me flat. 

In a low, stubby pinon tree, scarce twenty feet 
from us, was a tawny form. An enormous mountain- 
lion, as large as an African lioness, stood planted 
with huge, round legs on two branches; and he faced 
us gloomily, neither frightened nor fierce. He 
watched the running dogs with pale, yellow eyes, 
waved his massive head and switched a long, black- 
tufted tail. 

“It’s Old Tom! sure as you’re born! It’s Old 
Tom!” yelled Jones. “There’s no two lions like 
that in one country. Hold still now. Jude is here, 
and she’ll see him — she’ll show him to the other 
hounds. Hold still!” 

We heard Jude coming at a fast pace for a lame 
dog, and we saw her presently, running with her nose 
down for a moment, then up. She entered the clump 
of trees, and bumped her nose against the pinon Old 
Tom was in, and looked up like a dog that knew her 
business. The series of wild howls she broke into 
quickly brought Sounder and Moze to her side. 
They, too, saw the big lion, not fifteen feet over their 
heads. 

We were all yelling and trying to talk at once, in 
some such state as the dogs^ 

224 


Old Tom 


“ Hyar, Moze! Come down out of that!” 
hoarsely shouted Jones. 

Moze had begun to climb the thick, many- 
branched, low pihon tree. He paid not the slightest 
attention to Jones, who screamed and raged at him. 

“ Cover the lion 1 ” cried he to me. “ Don’t shoot 
unless he crouches to jump on me.” 

The little beaded front-sight wavered slightly as I 
held my rifle leveled at the grim, snarling face, and 
out of the corner of my eye, as it were, I saw Jones 
dash in under the lion and grasp Moze by the hind 
leg and haul him down. He broke from Jones 
and leaped again to the first low branch. His mas- 
ter then grasped his collar and carried him to where 
we stood and held him choking. 

“ Boys, we can’t keep Tom up there. When he 
jumps, keep out of his way. Maybe we can chase 
him up a better tree.” 

Old Tom suddenly left the branches, swinging 
violently; and hitting the ground like a huge cat on 
springs, he bounded off, tail up, in a most ludicrous 
manner. His running, however, did not lack speed, 
for he quickly outdistanced the bursting hounds. 

A stampede for horses succeeded this move. I had 
difficulty in closing my camera, which I had forgotten 
until the last moment, and got behind the others. 
Satan sent the dust flying and the pinon branches 
225 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


crashing. Hardly had I time to bewail my ill-luck 
in being left, when I dashed out of a thick growth of 
trees to come upon my companions, all dismounted 
on the rim of the Grand Canon. 

“ He’s gone down ! He’s gone down ! ” raged ^ 
Jones, stamping the ground. “ What luck ! What 
miserable luck! But don’t quit; spread along the 
rim, boys, and look for him. Cougars can’t fly. 
There’s a break in the rim somewhere.” 

The rock wall, on which we dizzily stood, dropped 
straight down for a thousand feet, to meet a long, 
pihon-covered slope, which graded a mile to cut off 
into what must have been the second wall. We were 
far west of Clarke’s trail now, and faced a point 
above where Kanab Canon, a red gorge a mile deep, 
met the great canon. As I ran along the rim, look- 
ing for a fissure or break, my gaze seemed impellingly 
drawn by the immensity of this thing I could not 
name, and for which I had as yet no intelligible 
emotion. 

Two “ Waa-hoos ” in the rear turned me back in 
double-quick time, and hastening by the horses, I 
found the three men grouped at the head of a narrow 
break. 

“ He went down here. Wallace saw him round 
the base of that tottering crag.” 

The break was wedge-shaped, with the sharp end 
226 





Sounder suddenly broke down a trail 







The death of the mountain king. 


Old Tom 


toward the rim, and it descended so rapidly as to 
appear almost perpendicular. It was a long, steep 
slide of small, weathered shale, and a place that no 
man in his right senses would ever have considered 
going down. But Jones, designating Frank and me, 
said in his cool, quick voice : 

“ You fellows go down. Take Jude and Sounder 
in leash. If you find his trail below along the wall, 
yell for us. Meanwhile, Wallace and I will hang 
over the rim and watch for him.” 

Going down, in one sense, was much easier than 
had appeared, for the reason that once started we 
moved on sliding beds of weathered stone. Each of 
us now had an avalanche for a steed. Frank forged 
ahead with a roar, and then seeing danger below, 
tried to get out of the mass. But the stones were 
like quicksand; every step he took sunk him in 
deeper. He grasped the smooth cliff, to find holding 
impossible. The slide poured over a fall like so 
much water. He reached and caught a branch of a 
pihon, and lifting his feet up, hung on till the treach- 
erous area of moving stones had passed. 

While I had been absorbed in his predicament, 
my avalanche augmented itself by slide on slide, per- 
haps loosened by his; and before I knew it, I was 
sailing down with ever-increasing momentum. The 
sensation was distinctly pleasant, and a certain spirit, 
227 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

before restrained in me, at last ran riot. The slide 
narrowed at the drop where Frank had jumped, and 
the stones poured over in a stream. I jumped also, 
but having a rifle in one hand, failed to hold, and 
plunged down into the slide again. My feet were 
held this time, as in a vise. I kept myself upright 
and waited. Fortunately, the jumble of loose stone 
slowed and stopped, enabling me to crawl over to 
one side where there was comparatively good foot- 
ing. Below us, for fifty yards, was a sheet of rough 
stone, as bare as washed granite well could be. We 
slid down this in regular schoolboy fashion, and had 
reached another restricted neck in the fissure, when 
a sliding crash above warned us that the avalanches 
had decided to move of their own free will. Only 
a fraction of a moment had we to find footing along 
the yellow cliff, when, with a cracking roar, the mass 
struck the slippery granite. If we had been on that 
slope, our lives would not have been worth a grain 
of the dust flying in clouds above us. Huge stones, 
that had formed the bottom of the slides, shot ahead, 
and rolling, leaping, whizzed by us with frightful 
velocity, and the remainder groaned and growled its 
way down, to thunder over the second fall and die 
out in a distant rumble. 

The hounds had hung back, and were not easily 
coaxed down to us. From there on, down to the 


Old Tom 


base of the gigantic cliff, we descended with little 
difficulty. 

“We might meet the old gray cat anywheres along 
here,” said Frank. 

The wall of yellow limestone had shelves, ledges, 
fissures and cracks, any one of which might have 
concealed a lion. On these places I turned dark, 
uneasy glances. It seemed to me events succeeded 
one another so rapidly that I had no time to think, 
to examine, to prepare. We were rushed from one 
sensation to another. 

“ Gee ! look here,” said Frank; “ here’s his tracks. 
Did you ever sec the like of that? ” 

Certainly I had never fixed my eyes on such enor- 
mous cat-tracks as appeared in the yellow dust at the 
base of the rim wall. The mere sight of them was 
sufficient to make a man tremble. 

“ Hold in the dogs, Frank,” I called. “ Listen. 
I think I heard a yell.” 

From far above came a yell, which, though thinned 
out by distance, was easily recognized as Jones’s. 
We returned to the opening of the break, and throw- 
ing our heads back, looked up the slide to see him 
coming down. 

“ Wait for me ! Wait for me ! I saw the lion go 
in a cave. Wait for me ! ” 

With the same roar and crack and slide of rocks 
229 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


as had attended our descent, Jones bore down on us. 
For an old man it was a marvelous performance. 
He walked on the avalanches as though he wore 
seven-league boots, and presently, as we began to 
dodge whizzing bowlders, he stepped down to us, 
whirling his coiled lasso. His jaw bulged out; a 
flash made fire in his cold eyes. 

“ Boys, weVc got Old Tom in a corner. I worked 
along the rim north and looked over every place I 
could. Now, maybe you won’t believe it, but I heard 
him pant. Yes, sir, he panted like the tired lion he 
is. Well, presently I saw him lying along the base 
of the rim wall. His tongue was hanging out. You 
see, he’s a heavy lion, and not used to running long 
distances. Come on, now. It’s not far. Hold in 
the dogs. You there with the rifle, lead off, and keep 
your eyes peeled.” 

Single file, we passed along in the shadow of the 
great cliff. A wide trail had been worn in the dust. 

“ A lion run-way,” said Jones. “ Don’t you smell 
the cat? ” 

Indeed, the strong odor of cat was very pro- 
nounced ; and that, without the big fresh tracks, made 
the skin on my face tighten and chill. As we turned 
a jutting point in the wall, a number of animals, 
which I did not recognize, plunged helter-skelter 
down the canon slope. 


230 


Old Tom 


“Rocky Mountain sheep!” exclaimed Jones. 
“Look! Well, this is a discovery. I never heard 
of a bighorn in the canon.” 

It was indicative of the strong grip Old Tom had 
on us that we at once forgot the remarkable fact of 
coming upon those rare sheep in such a place. 

Jones halted us presently before a deep curve 
described by the rim wall, the extreme end of which 
terminated across the slope in an impassable pro- 
jecting corner. 

“ See across there, boys. See that black hole. 
Old Tom’s in there.” 

“ What’s your plan? ” queried the cowboy sharply. 

“ Wait. We’ll slip up to get better lay of the 
land.” 

We worked our way noiselessly along the rim-wall 
curve for several hundred yards and came to a halt 
again, this time with a splendid command of the , 
situation. The trail ended abruptly at the dark cave, 
so menacingly staring at us, and the corner of the 
cliff had curled back upon itself. It was a box-trap, 
with a drop at the end, too great for any beast, a 
narrow slide of weathered stone running down, and 
the rim wall trail. Old Tom would plainly be com- 
pelled to choose one of these directions if he left his 
cave. 

“ Frank, you and I will keep to the wall and stop 

231 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

near that scrub pihon, this side of the hole. If I 
rope him, I can use that tree.’’ 

Then he turned to me : 

“ Are you to be depended on here? ” 

‘‘ I ? What do you want me to do ? ” I demanded, 
and my whole breast seemed to sink in. 

“You cut across the head of this slope and take 
up your position in the slide below the cave, say 
just by that big stone. From there you can command 
the cave, our position and your own. Now, if it is 
necessary to kill this lion to save me or Frank, or, of 
course, yourself, can you be depended upon to kill 
him?” 

I felt a queer sensation around my heart and a 
strange tightening of the skin upon my face ! What 
a position for me to be placed in ! For one instant 
I shook like a quivering aspen leaf. Then because 
of the pride of a man, or perhaps inherited instincts 
cropping out at this perilous moment, I looked up 
and answered quietly: 

“Yes. I will kill him!” 

“ Old Tom is cornered, and he’ll come out. He 
can run only two ways : along this trail, or down that 
slide. I’ll take my stand by the scrub pihon there so 
I can get a hitch if I rope him. Frank, when I give 
the word, let the dogs go. Grey, you block the slide. 
If he makes at us, even if I do get my rope on him, 

232 


Old Tom 


kill him! Most likely he’ll jump down hill — then 
you’ll have to kill him! Be quick. Now loose the 
hounds. Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” 

I jumped into the narrow slide of weathered stone 
and looked up. Jones’s stentorian yell rose high 
above the clamor of the hounds. He whirled his 
lasso. 

A huge yellow form shot over the trail and hit 
the top of the slide with a crash. The lasso streaked 
out with arrowy swiftness, circled, and snapped 
viciously close to Old Tom’s head. “Kill him! Kill 
him ! ” roared Jones. Then the lion leaped, seem- 
ingly into the air above me. Instinctively I raised my 
little automatic rifle. I seemed to hear a million 
bellowing reports. The tawny body, with its grim, 
snarling face, blurred in my sight. I heard a roar 
of sliding stones at my feet. I felt a rush of wind. 
I caught a confused glimpse of a whirling wheel of 
fur, rolling down the slide. 

Then Jones and Frank were pounding me, and 
yelling I know not what. From far above came 
floating down a long “ Waa-hoo! ” I saw Wallace 
silhouetted against the blue sky. I felt the hot barrel 
of my rifle, and shuddered at the bloody stones below 
me — then, and then only, did I realize, with weaken- 
ing legs, that Old Tom had jumped at me, and had 
jumped to his death. 


233 


CHAPTER XIII 


SINGING CLIFFS 

O LD TOM had rolled two hundred yards 
down the canon, leaving a red trail and bits 
of fur behind him. When I had clambered 
down to the steep slide where he had lodged, 
Sounder and Jude had just decided he was no longer 
w^orth biting, and were wagging their tails. Frank 
was shaking his head, and Jones, standing above the 
lion, lasso in hand, wore a disconsolate face. 

“ How I wish I had got the rope on him ! ” 

“ I reckon we’d be gatherin’ up the pieces of you 
if you had,” said Frank, dryly. 

We skinned the old king on the rocky slope of his 
mighty throne, and then, beginning to feel the effects 
of severe exertion, we cut across the slope for the foot 
of the break. Once there, we gazed up in dismay. 
That break resembled a walk of life — how easy to 
slip down, how hard to climb ! Even Frank, inured 
as he was to strenuous toil, began to swear and wipe 
his sweaty brow before we had made one-tenth of the 
ascent. It was particularly exasperating, not to men- 
234 


Singing Cliffs 


tion the danger of It, to work a few feet up a slide, 
and then feel It start to move. We had to climb in 
single file, which jeopardized the safety of those 
behind the leader. Sometimes we were all sliding at 
once, like boys on a pond, with the difference that 
we were In danger. Frank forged ahead, turning 
to yell now and then for us to dodge a cracking stone. 
Faithful old Jude could not get up in some places, 
so laying aside my rifle, I carried her, and returned 
for the weapon. It became necessary, presently, to 
hide behind cllif projections to escape the avalanches 
started by Frank, and to wait till he had surmounted 
the break. Jones gave out completely several times, 
saying the exertion affected his heart. What with 
my rifle, my camera and Jude, I could offer him no 
assistance, and was really In need of that myself. 
When it seemed as if one more step would kill us, we 
reached the rim, and fell panting with labored chests 
and dripping skins. We could not speak. Jones 
had worn a pair of ordinary shoes without thick 
soles and nails, and It seemed well to speak of them 
In the past tense. They were split into ribbons and 
hung on by the laces. His feet were cut and bruised. 

On the way back to camp, we encountered Moze 
and Don coming out of the break where we had 
started Sounder on the trail. The paws of both 
hounds were yellow with dust, which proved they 

235 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

had been down under the rim wall. Jones doubted 
not in the least that they had chased a lion. 

Upon examination, this break proved to be one 
of the two which Clarke used for trails to his wild 
horse corral in the canon. According to him, the 
distance separating them was five miles by the rim 
wall, and less than half that in a straight line. There- 
fore, we made for the point of the forest where it 
ended abruptly in the scrub oak. We got into camp, 
a fatigued lot of men, horses and dogs. Jones 
appeared particularly happy, and his first move, after 
dismounting, was to stretch out the lion skin and 
measure it. 

“Ten feet, three inches and a half!” he sang 
out. 

“ Shore it do beat hell! ” exclaimed Jim in tones 
nearer to excitement than any I had ever heard him 
use. 

“ Old Tom beats, by two inches, any cougar I 
ever saw,” continued Jones. “ He must have 
weighed more than three hundred. We’ll set about 
curing the hide. Jim, stretch it well on a tree, and 
we’ll take a hand in peeling off the fat.” 

All of the party worked on the cougar skin that 
afternoon. The gristle at the base of the neck, where 
it met the shoulders, was so tough and thick we could 
not scrape it thin. Jones said this particular spot 

236 


Singing Cliffs 

was so well protected because in fighting, cougars 
were most likely to bite and claw there. For that 
matter, the whole skin was tough, tougher than 
leather ; and when it dried, it pulled all the horseshoe 
nails out of the pine tree upon which we had it 
stretched. 

About time for the sun to set, I strolled along the 
rim wall to look into the canon. I was beginning to 
feel something of its character and had growing 
impressions. Dark purple smoke veiled the clefts 
deep down between the mesas. I walked along to 
where points of cliff ran out like capes and peninsulas, 
all seamed, cracked, wrinkled, scarred and yellow 
with age, with shattered, toppling ruins of rocks 
ready at a touch to go thundering down. I could not 
resist the temptation to crawl out to the farthest 
point, even though I shuddered over the yard-wide 
ridges ; and when once seated on a bare promontory, 
two hundred feet from the regular rim wall, I felt 
isolated, marooned. 

The sun, a liquid red globe, had just touched its 
under side to the pink cliffs of Utah, and fired a 
crimson flood of light over the wonderful mountains, 
plateaus, escarpments, mesas, domes and turrets of 
the gorge. The rim wall of Powell’s Plateau was 
a thin streak of fire ; the timber above like grass of 
gold; and the long slopes below shaded from bright 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


to dark. Point Sublime, bold and bare, ran out 
toward the plateau, jealously reaching for the sun. 
Bass’s Tomb peeped over the Saddle. The Temple 
of Vishnu lay bathed in vapory shading clouds, and 
the Shinumo Altar shone with rays of glory. 

The beginning of the wondrous transformation, 
the dropping of the day’s curtain, was for me a rare 
and perfect moment. As the golden splendor of sun- 
set sought out a peak or mesa or escarpment, I gave 
it a name to suit my fancy; and as flushing, fading, 
its glory changed, sometimes I rechristened it. Jupi- 
ter’s Chariot, brazen wheeled, stood ready to roll 
into the clouds. Semiramis’s Bed, all gold, shone 
from a tower of Babylon. Castor and Pollux clasped 
hands over a Stygian river. The Spur of Doom, a 
mountain shaft as red as hell, and inaccessible, insur- 
mountable, lured with strange light. Dusk, a bold, 
black dome, was shrouded by the shadow of a giant 
mesa. The Star of Bethlehem glittd-ed from the 
brow of Point Sublime. The Wraith, fleecy, feath- 
ered curtain of mist, floated down among the ruins 
of castles and palaces, like the ghost of a goddess. 
Vales of Twilight, dim, dark ravines, mystic homes 
of specters, led into the awful Valley of the Shadow, 
clothed in purple night. 

Suddenly, as the first puff of the night wind fanned 
my cheek, a strange, sweet, low moaning and sighing 
238 


Singing Cliffs 

came to my ears. I almost thought I was in a dream. 
But the canon, now blood-red, was there in over- 
whelming reality, a profound, solemn, gloomy thing, 
but real. The wind blew stronger, and then I was 
listening to a sad, sweet song, which lulled as the 
wind lulled. I realized at once that the sound was 
caused by the wind blowing into the peculiar forma- 
tions of the cliffs. It changed, softened, shaded, 
mellowed, but it was always sad. It rose from low, 
tremulous, sweetly quavering sighs, to a sound like 
the last woeful, despairing wail of a woman. It was 
the song of the sea sirens and the music of the waves ; 
it had the soft sough of the night wind in the trees, 
and the haunting moan of lost spirits. 

With reluctance I turned my back to the gor- 
geously changing spectacle of the canon and crawled 
in to the rim wall. At the narrow neck of stone I 
peered over to look down into misty blue nothingness. 

That night Jones told stories of frightened 
hunters, and assuaged my mortification by saying 
buck-fever ” was pardonable after the danger had 
i/passed, and especially so in my case, because of the 
great size and fame of Old Tom. 

“ The worst case of buck-fever I ever saw was on 
a buffalo hunt I had with a fellow named Williams,” 
went on Jones. “ I was one of the scouts leading 
a wagon-train west on the old Santa Fe trail. This 
239 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


fellow said he was a big hunter, and wanted to kill 
a buffalo, so I took him out. I saw a herd making 
over the prairie for a hollow where a brook ran, 
and by hard work, got in ahead of them. I picked 
out a position just below the edge of the bank, and 
we lay quiet, waiting. From the direction of the 
buffalo, I calculated we’d be just about right to get 
a shot at no very long range. As it was, I suddenly 
heard thumps on the ground, and cautiously raising 
my head, saw a huge buffalo bull just over us, not 
fifteen feet up the bank. I whispered to Williams: 
‘ For God’s sake, don’t shoot, don’t move I ’ The 
bull’s little fiery eyes snapped, and he reared. I 
thought we were goners, for when a bull comes down 
on anything with his forefeet. It’s done for. But he 
slowly settled back, perhaps doubtful. Then, as 
another buffalo came to the edge of the bank, luckily 
a little way from us, the bull turned broadside, pre- 
senting a splendid target. Then I whispered to 
Williams: ‘ Now’s your chance. Shoot! ’ I waited 
for the shot, but none came. Looking at Williams, I 
saw he was white and trembling. Big drops of sweat 
stood out on his brow; his teeth chattered, and his 
hands shook. He had forgotten he carried a rifle.” 

“ That reminds me,” said Frank. “ They tell a 
story over at Kanab on a Dutchman named Schmitt. 
He was very fond of huntin’, an’ I guess had pretty 
240 


Singing Cliffs 

good success after deer an’ small game. One winter 
he was out in the Pink Cliffs with a Mormon named 
Shoonover, an’ they run into a lammin’ big grizzly 
track, fresh an’ wet. They trailed him to a clump 
of chaparral, an’ on goin’ clear round it, found no 
tracks leadin’ out. Shoonover said Schmitt com- 
menced to sweat. They went back to the place where 
the trail led in, an’ there they were, great big silver- 
tip tracks, bigger’n hoss-tracks, so fresh thet water 
was oozin’ out of ’em. Schmitt said : ‘ Zake, you go 
in und ged him. I hef took sick righdt now.’ ” 

Happy as we were over the chase of Old Tom, 
and our prospects — for Sounder, Jude and Moze had 
seen a lion in a tree — ^wc sought our blankets early. 
I lay watching the bright stars, and listening to the 
roar of the wind in the pines. At intervals it lulled 
to a whisper, and then sweljed to a roar, and then 
died away. Far off in the forest a coyote barked 
once. Time and time again, as I was gradually sink- 
ing into slumber, the sudden roar of the wind startled 
me. I imagined it was the crash of rolling, weath- 
ered stone, and I saw again that huge outspread, fly- 
ing lion above me. 

I awoke sometime later to find Moze had sought 
the warmth of my side, and he lay so near my arm 
that I reached out and covered him with an end of 
the blanket I used to break the wind. It was very 
241 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


cold and the time must have been very late, for the 
wind had died down, and I heard not a tinkle from 
the hobbled horses. The absence of the cowbell 
music gave me a sense of loneliness, for without it 
the silence of the great forest was a thing to be felt. 

This oppressiveness, however, was broken by a 
far-distant cry, unlike any sound I had ever heard. 
Not sure of myself, I freed my ears from the 
blanketed hood and listened. It came again, a wild 
cry, that made me think first of a lost child, and then 
of the mourning wolf of the north. It must have 
been a long distance off in the forest. An interval 
of some moments passed, then it pealed out again, 
nearer this time, and so human that it startled me. 
Moze raised his head and growled low in his throat, 
and sniffed the keen air. 

“ Jones, Jones,” I called, reaching over to touch 
the old hunter. 

He awoke at once, with the clear-headedness of 
the light sleeper. 

‘‘ I heard the cry of some beast,” I said, “ and it 
was so weird, so strange. I want to know what it 
was.” 

Such a long silence ensued that I began to despair 
of hearing the cry again, when, with a suddenness 
which straightened the hair on my head, a wailing 
shriek, exactly like a despairing woman might give 

242 


Singing Cliffs 


in death agony, split the night silence. It seemed 
right on us. 

“ Cougar! Cougar! Cougar! ” exclaimed Jones. 

“What’s up?” queried Frank, awakened by the 
dogs. 

Their howling roused the rest of the party, and 
no doubt scared the cougar, for his womanish scream 
was not repeated. Then Jones got up and gathered 
his blankets in a roll. 

“Where you oozin’ for now?” asked Frank, 
sleepily. 

“ I think that cougar just came up over the rim on 
a scouting hunt, and I’m going to go down to the 
head of the trail and stay there till morning. If he 
returns that way. I’ll put him up a tree.” 

With this, he unchained Sounder and Don, and 
stalked off under the trees, looking like an Indian. 
Once the deep bay of Sounder rang out; Jones’s 
sharp command followed, and then the familiar 
silence encompassed the forest and was broken no 
more. 

When I awoke all was gray, except toward the 
canon, where the little bit of sky I saw through 
the pines glowed a delicate pink. I crawled out on 
the instant, got into my boots and coat, and kicked 
up the smoldering fire. Jim heard me, and said : 

“ Shore you’re up early.” 

243 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


“ I’m going to see the sunrise from the north rim 
of the Grand Canon,” I said, and knew when I spoke 
that very few men, out of all the millions of travelers, 
had ever seen this, probably the most surpassingly 
beautiful pageant in the world. At most, only a 
few geologists, scientists, perhaps an artist or two, 
and horse wranglers, hunters and prospectors have 
ever reached the rim on the north side; and these 
men, crossing from Bright Angel or Mystic Spring 
trails on the south rim, seldom or never get beyond 
Powell’s Plateau. 

The frost cracked under my boots like frail ice, 
and the bluebells peeped wanly from the white. 
When I reached the head of Clarke’s trail it was 
just daylight; and there, under a pine, I found Jones 
rolled in his blankets, with Sounder and Moze asleep 
beside him. I turned without disturbing him, and 
went along the edge of the forest, but back a little 
distance from the rim wall. 

I saw deer off in the woods, and tarrying, watched 
them throw up graceful heads, and look and listen. 
The soft pink glow through the pines deepened to 
rose, and suddenly I caught a point of red fire. Then 
I hurried to the place I had named Singing Cliffs, 
and keeping my eyes fast on the stone beneath me, 
crawled out to the very farthest point, drew a long, 
deep breath, and looked eastward. 

244 


Singing Cliffs 

The awfulncss of sudden death and the glory of 
heaven stunned me I The thing that had been mys- 
tery at twilight, lay clear, pure, open in the rosy hue , 
of dawn. Out of the gates of the morning poured 
a light which glorified the palaces and pyramids, 
purged and purified the afternoon’s inscrutable clefts, 
swept away the shadows of the mesas, and bathed 
that broad, deep world of mighty mountains, stately 
spars of rock, sculptured cathedrals and alabaster 
terraces in an artist’s dream of color. A pearl from 
heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire into this 
chasm. A stream of opal flowed out of the sun, to 
touch each peak, mesa, dome, parapet, temple and 
tower, cliff and cleft into the new-born life of another 
day. 

I sat there for a long time and knew that every 
second the scene changed, yet I could not tell how. I 
knew I sat high over a hole of broken, splintered, 
barren mountains ; I knew I could see a hundred miles 
of the length of it, and eighteen miles of the width 
of It, and a mile of the depth of it, and the shafts and 
rays of rose light on a million glancing, many-hued 
surfaces at once ; but that knowledge was no help to 
me. I repeated a lot of meaningless superlatives to 
myself, and I found words inadequate and superflu- 
ous. The spectacle was too elusive and great It 
was life and death, heaven and hell. 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


I tried to call up former favorite views of moun- 
tain and sea, so as to compare them with this ; but the 
memory pictures refused to come, even with my eyes 
closed. Then I returned to camp, with unsettled, 
troubled mind, and was silent, wondering at the 
strange feeling burning within me. 

Jones talked about our visitor of the night before, 
and said the trail near where he had slept showed 
only one cougar track, and that led down into the 
canon. It had surely been made, he thought, by the 
beast we had heard. Jones signified his intention of 
chaining several of the hounds for the next few nights 
at the head of this trail; so if the cougar came up, 
they would scent him and let us know. From which 
it was evident that to chase a lion bound into the 
canon and one bound out were two different things. 

The day passed lazily, with all of us resting on 
the warm, fragrant pine-needle beds, or mending a 
rent in a coat, or working on some camp task impossi- 
ble of commission on exciting days. 

About four o’clock, I took my little rifle and 
walked off through the woods in the direction of the 
carcass where I had seen the gray wolf. Thinking 
it best to make a wide detour, -o as to face the wind, 

I circled till I felt the breeze was favorable to my 
enterprise, and then cautiously approached the hollow 
where the dead horse lay. Indian fashion, I slipped , 
246 


Singing Cliffs 

from tree to tree, a mode of forest travel not without 
its fascination and effectiveness, till I reached the 
height of a knoll beyond which I made sure was my 
objective point. On peeping out from behind the 
last pine, I found I had calculated pretty well, for 
there was the hollow, the big windfall, with its round, 
starfish-shaped roots exposed to the bright sun, and 
near that, the carcass. Sure enough, pulling hard at 
it, was the gray-white wolf I recognized as my 
“ lofer.” 

But he presented an exceedingly difficult shot. 
Backing down the ridge, I ran a little way to come 
up behind another tree, from which I soon shifted 
to a fallen pine. Over this I peeped, to get a splendid 
view of the wolf. He had stopped tugging at the 
horse, and stood with his nose in the air. Surely he 
could not have scented me, for the wind was strong 
from him to me ; neither could he have heard my soft 
footfalls on the pine needles; nevertheless, he was 
suspicious. Loth to spoil the picture he made, I 
risked a chance, and waited. Besides, though I 
prided myself on being able to take a fair aim, I had 
no great hope that I could hit him at such a distance. 
Presently he returned to his feeding, but not for long. 
Soon he raised his long, fine-pointed head, and trotted 
away a few yards, stopped to sniff again, then went 

back to his grewsome work. 

247 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


At this juncture, I noiselessly projected my rifie 
barrel over the log. I had not, however, gotten the 
sights in line with him, when he trotted away reluc- 
tantly, and ascended the knoll on his side of the 
hollow. I lost him, and had just begun sourly to 
call myself a mollycoddle hunter, when he reap- 
peared. He halted in an open glade, on the very 
crest of the knoll, and stood still as a statue wolf, a 
white, inspiriting target, against a dark green back- 
ground. I could not stifle a rush of feeling, for I 
was a lover of the beautiful first, and a hunter sec- 
ondly; but I steadied down as the front sight moved 
into the notch through which I saw the black and 
white of his shoulder. 

Spang! How the little Remington sang! I 
watched closely, ready to send five more missiles after 
the gray beast. He jumped spasmodically, in a half- 
curve, high in the air, with loosely hanging head^ 
then dropped in a heap. I yelled like a boy, ran down 
the hill, up the other side of the hollow, to find him 
stretched out dead, a small hole in his shoulder where 
the bullet had entered, a great one where it had come 
out. 

The job I made of skinning him lacked some hun- 
dred degrees the perfection of my shot, but I accom- 
plished it, and returned to camp in triumph. 

“ Shore I knowed you’d plunk him,” said Jim, 

248 


Singing Cliffs 

very much pleased. “ I shot one the other day same 
way, when he was feedin’ off a dead horse. Now 
thet’s a fine skin. Shore you cut through once or 
twice. But he’s only half lofer, the other half is 
plain coyote. Thet accounts fer his feedin’ on dead 
meat.” 

My naturalist host and my scientific friend both 
remarked somewhat grumpily that I seemed to get 
the best of all the good things. I might have retali- 
ated that I certainly had gotten the worst of all the 
bad jokes; but, being generously happy over my 
prize, merely remarked : “ If you want fame or 
wealth or wolves, go out and hunt for them.” 

Five o’clock supper left a good margin of day, in 
which my thoughts reverted to the canon. I watched 
the purple shadows stealing out of their caverns and 
rolling up about the base of the mesas. Jones came 
over to where I stood, and I persuaded him to walk 
with me along the rim wall. Twilight had stealthily 
advanced when we reached the Singing Cliffs, and 
we did not go out upon my promontory, but chose a 
more comfortable one nearer the wall. 

The night breeze had not sprung up yet, so the 
music of the cliffs was hushed. 

“ You cannot accept the theory of erosion to 
account for this chasm?” I asked my companion, 

referring to a former conversation. 

249 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

“ I can for this part of it. But what stumps me 
IS the mountain range three thousand feet high, cross- 
ing the desert and the canon just above where we 
crossed the river. How did the river cut through 
that without the help of a split or earthquake ? ” 

ril admit that is a poser to me as well as to 
;you. But I suppose Wallace could explain it as 
^erosion. He claims this whole western country was 
once under water, except the tips of the Sierra 
Nevada mountains. There came an uplift of the 
earth’s crust, and the great inland sea began to run 
out, presumably by way of the Colorado. In so 
doing it cut out the upper canon, this gorge eighteen 
miles wide. Then came a second uplift, giving the 
river a much greater impetus toward the sea, which 
cut out the second, or marble canon. Now as to the 
mountain range crossing the canon at right angles. 
It must have come with the second uplift. If so, 
did it dam the river back into another inland sea, 
and then wear down into that red perpendicular 
gorge we remember so well? Or was there a great 
break in the fold of granite, which let the river con- 
tinue on its way? Or was there, at that particular 
point, a softer stone, like this limestone here, which 
erodes easily? ” 

“ You must ask somebody wiser than I.” 

“ Well, let’s not perplex our minds with its origin. 

250 


Singing Cliffs 

It is, and that’s enough for any mind. Ah! listen! 
Now you will hear my Singing Cliffs.” 

From out of the darkening shadows murmurs 
rose on the softly rising wind. This strange music 
had a depressing influence; but it did not fill the 
heart with sorrow, only touched it lightly. And 
when, with the dying breeze, the song died away, it 
left the lonely crags lonelier for its death. 

The last rosy gleam faded from the tip of Point 
Sublime; and as if that were a signal, in all the 
clefts and canons below, purple, shadowy clouds mar- 
shaled their forces and began to sweep upon the 
battlements, to swing colossal wings into amphithea- 
ters where gods might have warred, slowly to enclose 
the magical sentinels. Night intervened, and a mov- 
ing, changing, silent chaos pulsated under the bright 
stars. 

, “ How infinite all this is 1 How impossible to 

understand! ” I exclaimed. 

“ To me it is very simple,” replied my comrade. 

> “ The world is strange. But this canon — ^why, we 
can see it all ! I can’t make out why people fuss so 
over it. I only feel peace. It’s only bold and beauti- 
ful, serene and silent.” 

With the words of this quiet old plainsman, my 
sentimental passion shrank to the true appreciation 
of the scene. Self passed out to the recurring, soft 
251 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


strains of cliff song. I had been reveling in a species 
of indulgence, imagining I was a great lover of 
nature, building poetical illusions over storm-beaten 
peaks. The truth, told by one who had lived fifty 
years in the solitudes, among the rugged mountains, 
under the dark trees, and by the sides of the lonely 
streams, was the simple interpretation of a spirit in 
harmony with the bold, the beautiful, the serene, the 
silent. 

He meant the Grand Canon was only a mood of 
nature, a bold promise, a beautiful record. He meant 
that mountains had sifted away in its dust, yet the 
canon was young. Man was nothing, so let him be 
humble. This cataclysm of the earth, this play- 
ground of a river was not inscrutable; it was only 
inevitable — as inevitable as nature herself. Millions 
of years in the bygone ages it had lain serene under 
a live moon ; it would bask silent under a raylcss sun, 
in the onward edge of time. 

It taught simplicity, serenity, peace. The eye that 
saw only the strife, the war, the decay, the ruin, or 
only the glory and the tragedy, saw not all the truth. 
It spoke simply, though its words were grand: “ My 
spirit is the Spirit of Time, of Eternity, of God. 
Man is little, vain, vaunting. Listen. To-morrow 
he shall be gone. Peace I Peace ! ” 


252 


CHAPTER XIV 


ALL HEROES BUT ONE 

AS we rode up the slope of Buckskin, the sunrise 
glinted red-gold through the aisles of frosted 
^ pines, giving us a hunter’s glad greeting. 

With all due respect to, and appreciation of, the 
breaks of the Siwash, we unanimously decided that 
if cougars inhabited any other section of canon coun- 
try, we preferred it, and were going to find it. We 
had often speculated on the appearance of the rim 
wall directly across the neck of the canon upon which 
we were located. It showed a long stretch of breaks, 
j fissures, caves, yellow crags, crumbled ruins and clefts 
green with pinon pine. As a crow flies, it was only 
a mile or two straight across from camp, but to 
reach it, we had to ascend the mountain and head the 
canon which deeply indented the slope. 

A thousand feet or more above the level bench, 
the character of the forest changed; the pines grew 
thicker, and interspersed among them were silver 
spruces and balsams. Here in the clumps of small 
trees and underbrush, we began to jump deer, and 
253 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


in a few moments a greater number than I had ever 
seen in all my hunting experiences loped within range 
of my eye. I could not look out into the forest, 
where an aisle or lane or glade stretched to any dis- 
tance, without seeing a big gray deer cross it. Jones 
said the herds had recently come up from the breaks, 
where they had wintered. These deer were twice the 
size of the Eastern species, and as fat as well-fed 
cattle. They were almost as tame, too. A big herd 
ran out of one glade, leaving behind several curious 
does, which watched us intently for a moment, then 
bounded off with the stiff, springy bounce that so 
amused me. 

Sounder crossed fresh trails one after another; 
Jude, Tige and Ranger followed him, but hesitated 
often, barked and whined; Don started off once, to 
come sneaking back at Jones’s stern call. But surly 
old Moze either would not or could not obey, and 
away he dashed. Bang! Jones sent a charge of 
fine shot after him. He yelped, doubled up as if 
stung, and returned as quickly as he had gone. 

“ Hyar, you white and black coon dog,” said 
Jones, “ get in behind, and stay there.” 

We turned to the right after a while and got 
among shallow ravines. Gigantic pines grew on the 
ridges and in the hollows, and everywhere bluebells 
shone blue from the white frost. Why the frost did 

254 


All Heroes But One 


' not kill these beautiful flowers was a mystery to me. 
The horses could not step without crushing them. 

Before long, the ravines became so deep that we 
had to zigzag up and down their sides, and to force 
our horses through the aspen thickets in the hollows. 
Once from a ridge I saw a troop of deer, and stopped 
to watch them. Twenty-seven I counted outright, 
but there must have been three times thaf number. I 
saw the herd break across a glade, and watched them 
until they were lost in the forest. My companions 
having disappeared, I pushed on, and while working 
out of a wide, deep hollow, I noticed the sunny 
patches fade from the bright slopes, and the golden 
streaks vanish among the pines. The sky had become 
overcast, and the forest was darkening. The “ Waa- 
hoo ” I cried out returned in echo only. The wind 
blew hard in my face, and the pines began to bend 
and roar. An immense black cloud enveloped Buck- 
'skin. 

Satan had carried me no farther than the next 
ridge, when the forest frowned dark as twilight, and 
' on the wind whirled flakes of snow. Oyer the next 
hollow, a white pall roared through the trees toward 
me. Hardly had I time to get the direction of the 
trail, and its relation to the trees nearby, when the 
storm enfolded me. Of his own accord Satan 
stopped in the lee of a bushy spruce. The roar in 
255 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


the pines equaled that of the cave under Niagara, 
and the bewildering, whirling mass of snow was as 
difficult to sec through as the tumbling, seething 
waterfall. 

I was confronted by the possibility of passing the 
night there, and calming my fears as best I could, 
hastily felt for my matches and knife. The prospect 
of being lost the next day in a white forest was also 
appalling, but I soon reassured myself that the storm 
was only a snow squall, and would not last long. 
Then I gave myself up to the pleasure and beauty 
of it. I could only faintly discern the dim trees; 
the limbs of the spruce, which partially protected me, 
sagged down to my head with their burden; I had 
but to reach out my hand for a snowball. Both the 
wind ancksnow seemed warm. The great flakes were 
like swan feathers on a summer breeze. There was 
something joyous in the whirl of snow and roar of. 
wind. While I bent over to shake my holster, the‘^ 
storm passed as suddenly as it had come. When I 
looked up, there were the pines, like pillars of Parian 
marble, and a white shadow, a vanishing cloud fled, ^ 
with receding roar, on the wings of the wind. Fast 
on this retreat burst the warm, bright sun. 

I faced my course, and was delighted to see, 
through an opening where the ravine cut out of the 
forest, the red-tipped peaks of the canon, and the 
256 


All Heroes But One 


vaulted dome I had named St. Marks. As I started, 
a new and unexpected after-feature of the storm 
began to manifest itself. The sun being warm, even 
hot, began to melt the snow, and under the trees a 
heavy rain fell, and in the glades and hollows a fine 
mist blew. Exquisite rainbows hung from white- 
tipped branches and curved over the hollows. Glis- 
tening patches of snow fell from the pines, and broke 
the showers. 

In a quarter of an hour, I rode out of the forest to 
the rim wall on dry ground. Against the green 
pihons Frank’s white horse stood out conspicuously, 
and near him browsed the mounts of Jim and Wah 
lace. The boys were not in evidence. Concluding 
they had gone down over the rim, I dismounted and 
kicked off my chaps, and taking my rifle and camera, 
hurried to look the place over. 

To my surprise and interest, I found a long sec- 
tion of rim wall in ruins. It lay in a great curve 
between the two giant capes ; and many short, sharp, 
projecting promontories, like the teeth of a saw, over- 
hung the canon. The slopes between these points of 
cliff were covered with a deep growth of pihon, 
and in these places descent would be easy. Every- 
where in the corrugated wall were rents and rifts; 
cliffs stood detached like islands near a shore; yellow 
crags rose out of green clefts; jumble of rocks, and 
257 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


slides of rim wall, broken into blocks, massed under 
the promontories. 

The singular raggedness and wildness of the scene 
took hold of me, and was not dispelled until the 
baying of Sounder and Don roused action in me. 
Apparently the hounds were widely separated. Thea 
I heard Jim’s yell. But it ceased when the wind 
lulled, and I heard it no more. Running back from 
the point, I began to go down. The way was steep, 
almost perpendicular ; but because of the great stones 
and the absence of slides, was easy. I took long 
strides and jumps, and slid over rocks, and swung on 
pinon branches, and covered distance like a rolling 
stone. At the foot of the rim wall, or at a line 
where it would have reached had it extended regu- 
larly, the slope became less pronounced. I could 
stand up without holding on to a support. The 
largest pihons I had seen made a forest that almost 
stood on end. These trees grew up, down, and out, 
and twisted in curves, and many were two feet in 
thickness. During my descent, I halted at intervals 
to listen, and always heard one of the hounds, some- 
times several. But as I descended for a long time, 
and did not get anywhere or approach the dogs, I 
began to grow impatient. 

A large pifion, with a dead top, suggested a good 
outlook, so I climbed it, and saw I could sweep a 
258 


All Heroes But One 


large section of the slope. >It was a strange thing to 
look down hill, over the tips of green trees. Below, 
perhaps four hundred yards, was a slide open for a 
long way; all the rest was green incline, with many 
dead branches sticking up like spars, and an occa- 
sional crag. From this perch I heard the hounds; 
then followed a yell I thought was Jim’s, and after 
it the bellowing of Wallace’s rifle. Then all was 
silent. The shots had effectually checked the yelping 
of the hounds. I let out a yell. Another cougar 
that Jones would not lasso! All at once I heard a 
familiar sliding of small rocks below me, and I 
watched the open slope with greedy eyes. 

Not a bit surprised was I to see a cougar break 
out of the green, and go tearing down the slide. In 
less than six seconds, I had sent six steel-jacketed 
bullets after him. Puffs of dust rose closer and closer 
to him as each bullet went nearer the mark and the 
last showered him with gravel and turned him 
straight down the canon slope. 

I slid down the dead pihon and jumped nearly 
twenty feet to the soft sand below, and after putting 
a loaded clip in my rifle, began kangaroo leaps down 
the slope. When I reached the point where the 
cougar had entered the slide, I called the hounds, 
but they did not come nor answer me. Notwith- 
standing my excitement, I appreciated the distance 
259 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

to the bottom of the slope before I reached it. In 
my haste, I ran upon the verge of a precipice twice 
as deep as the first rim wall, but one glance down 
sent me shudderingly backward. 

With all the breath I had left I yelled: “ Waa- 
hoo! Waa-hoo!” From the echoes flung at me, 
I imagined at first that my friends were right on my 
ears. But no real answer came. The cougar had 
probably passed along this second rim wall to a 
break, and had gone down. His trail could easily 
be taken by any of the hounds. Vexed and anxious, 
I signaled again and again. Once, long after the 
echo had gone to sleep in some hollow canon, I 
caught a faint “ Wa-a-ho-o-o ! ” But it might have 
come from the clouds. I did not hear a hound bark- 
ing above me on the slope; but suddenly, to my 
amazement. Sounder’s deep bay rose from the abyss 
below. I ran along the rim, called till I was hoarse, 
leaned over so far that the blood rushed to my head, 
and then sat down. I concluded this canon hunting 
could bear some sustained attention and thought, as 
well as frenzied action. 

Examination of my position showed how impossi- 
ble it was to arrive at any clear idea of the depth or 
size, or condition of the canon slopes from the main 
rim wall above. The second wall — a stupendous, 
yellow-faced cliff two thousand feet high — curved to 
260 


All Heroes But One 


my left round to a point in front of me. The inter- 
vening canon might have been a half mile wide, and 
it might have been ten miles. I had become disgusted 
with judging distance. The slope above this second 
wall facing me ran up far above my head; it fairly 
towered, and this routed all my former judgments, 
because I remembered distinctly that from the rim 
this yellow and green mountain had appeared an 
insignificant little ridge. But k was when I turned 
to gaze up behind me that I fully grasped the 
immensity of the place. This wall and slope were 
the first two steps down the long stairway of the 
Grand Canon, and they towered over me, straight 
up a half-mile in dizzy height. To think of climbing 
it took my breath away. 

Then again Sounder’s bay floated distinctly to me, 
but it seemed to come from a different point. I 
turned my ear to the wind, and in the succeeding 
moments I was more and more baffled. One bay 
sounded from below, and next from far to the right ; 
another from the left. I could not distinguish voice 
from echo. The acoustic properties of the amphi- 
theater beneath me were too wonderful for my com- 
prehension. 

As the bay grew sharper, and correspondingly 
more significant, I became distracted, and focused a 
strained vision on the canon deeps. I looked along 
261 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

the slope to the notch where the wall curved and 
followed the base line of the yellow clilf. Quite sud- 
denly I saw a very small black object moving with 
snail-like slowness. Although it seemed impossible 
for Sounder to be so small, I knew it was he. Having 
something now to judge distance from, I conceived 
it to be a mile, without the drop. If I could hear 
Sounder, he could hear me, so I yelled encourage- 
ment. The echoes clapped back at me like so many 
slaps in the face. I watched the hound until he. 
disappeared among broken heaps of stone, ai]d long 
after that his bay floated to me. 

Having rested, I essayed the discovery of some of 
my lost companions or the hounds, and began to 
climb. Before I started, however, I was wise enough 
to study the rim wall above, to familiarize myself 
with the break so I would have a landmark. Like 
horns and spurs of gold the pinnacles loomed up. 
Massed closely together, they were not unlike an 
astounding pipe-organ. I had a feeling of my little- 
ness, that I was lost, and should devote every moment 
and effort to the saving of my life. It did not seem 
possible I could be hunting. Though I climbed diag- 
onally, and rested often, my heart pumped so hard 
I could hear it. A yellow crag, with a round head 
like an old man’s cane, appealed to me as near the 
place where I last heard from Jim, and toward it I 
262 


All Heroes But One 


labored. Every time I glanced up, the distance 
seemed the same. A climb which I decided would 
not take more than fifteen minutes, required an hour. 

While resting at the foot of the crag, I heard more 
baying of hounds, but for my life I could not tell 
whether the sound came from up or down, and I 
commenced to feel that I did not much care. Having 
signaled till I was hoarse, and receiving none but 
mock answers, I decided that if my companions had 
not toppled over a cliff, they were wisely withholding 
their breath. 

Another stiff pull up the slope brought me under 
the rim wall, and there I groaned, because the wall 
was smooth and shiny, without a break. I plodded 
slowly along the base, with my rifle ready. Cougar 
tracks were so numerous I got tired of looking at 
them, but I did not forget that I might meet a tawny 
fellow or two among those narrow passes of shat- 
tered rock, and under the thick, dark pinons. Going 
on in this way, I ran point-blank into a pile of 
bleached bones before a cave. I had stumbled on the 
lair of a lion and from the looks of it one like that 
of Old Tom. I flinched twice before I threw a stone 
into the dark-mouthed cave. What impressed me as 
soon as I found I was in no danger of being pawed 
and clawed round the gloomy spot, was the fact of 
the bones being there. How did they come on a 
263 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

slope where a man could hardly walk? Only one 
answer seemed feasible. The lion had made his kill 
one thousand feet above, had pulled his quarry to 
the rim and pushed it over. In view of the theory 
that he might have had to drag his victim from the 
forest, and that very seldom two lions worked 
together, the fact of the location of the bones was 
startling. Skulls of wild horses and deer, antlers 
and countless bones, all crushed into shapelessness, 
furnished indubitable proof that the carcasses had 
fallen from a great height. Most remarkable of all 
was the skeleton of a cougar lying across that of a 
horse. I believed — I could not help but believe that 
the cougar had fallen with his last victim. 

Not many rods beyond the lion den, the rim wall 
split into towers, crags and pinnacles. I thought I 
had found my pipe organ, and began to climb toward 
a narrow opening in the rim. But I lost it. The 
extraordinarily cut-up condition of the wall made 
holding to one direction impossible. Soon I realized 
I was lost in a labyrinth. I tried to find my way 
! down again, but the best I could do was to reach the 
verge of a cliff, from which I could see the canon. 
Then I knew where I was, yet I did not know, so I 
plodded wearily back. Many a blind cleft did I 
ascend in the maze of crags. I could hardly crawl 
along, still I kept at it, for the place was conducive 

264 


All Heroes But One 


to dire thoughts. A tower of Babel menaced me 
with tons of loose shale. A tower that leaned more 
frightfully than the Tower of Pisa threatened to 
build my tomb. Many a lighthouse-shaped crag 
sent down little scattering rocks in ominous notice. 

After toiling in and out of passageways under the 
shadows of these strangely formed cliffs, and coming 
again and again to the same point, a blind pocket, I 
grew desperate. I named the baffling place Decep- 
tion Pass, and then ran down a slide. I knew if I 
could keep my feet I could beat the avalanche. 
More by good luck than management I outran the 
roaring stones and landed safely. Then rounding 
the cliff below, I found myself on a narrow ledge, 
with a wall to my left, and to the right the tips of 
pihon trees level with my feet. 

Innocently and wearily I passed round a pillar-like 
corner of wall, to come face to face with an old 
lioness and cubs. I heard the mother snarl, and at 
the same time her cars went back flat, and she 
crouched. The same fire of yellow eyes, the same 
grim snarling expression so familiar in my mind since 
Old Tom had leaped at me, faced me here. 

My recent vow of extermination was entirely for- 
gotten and one frantic spring carried me over the 
ledge. 

Crash! I felt the brushing and scratching of 
265 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


branches, and saw a green blur. I went down strad- 
dling limbs and hit the ground with a thump. For- 
tunately, I landed mostly on my feet, in sand, and 
suffered no serious bruise. But I was stunned, and 
my right arm was numb for a moment. When I 
gathered myself together, instead of being grateful 
the ledge had not been on the face of Point Sub- 
lime — from which I would most assuredly have 
leaped — I was the angriest man ever let loose in the 
Grand Canon. 

Of course the cougars were far on their way by 
that time, and were telling neighbors about the brave 
hunter’s leap for life; so I devoted myself to further 
efforts to find an outlet. The niche I had jumped 
into opened below, as did most of the breaks, and I 
worked out of it to the base of the rim wall, and 
tramped a long, long mile before I reached my own 
trail leading down. Resting every five steps, I 
climbed and climbed. My rifle grew to weigh a ton ; 
my feet were lead; the camera strapped to my 
shoulder was the world. Soon climbing meant 
trapeze work — long reach of arm, and pull of 
weight, high step of foot, and spring of body. 
Where I had slid down with ease, I had to strain 
and raise myself by sheer muscle. I wore my left 
glove to tatters and threw it away to put the right 
one on my left hand. I thought many times I could 
266 


All Heroes But One 


not make another move ; I thought my lungs would 
burst, but I kept on. When at last I surmounted the 
rim, I saw Jones, and flopped down beside him, and 
lay panting, dripping, boiling, with scorched feet, 
aching limbs and numb chest. 

“ I’ve been here two hours,” he said, “ and I 
knew things were happening below ; but to climb up 
that slide would kill me. I am not young any more, 
and a steep climb like this takes a young heart. As 
It was I had enough work. Look I ” He called my 
attention to his trousers. They had been cut to 
shreds, and the right trouser leg was missing from 
the knee down. His shin was bloody. “ Moze took 
a lion along the rim, and I went after him with all 
my horse could do. I yelled for the boys, but they 
didn’t come. Right here it is easy to go down, but 
below, where Moze started this lion, it was impossi- 
ble to get over the rim. The lion lit straight out 
of the pihons. I lost ground because of the thick 
brush and numerous trees. Then Moze doesn’t 
y bark often enough. He treed the lion twice. I could 
tell by the way he opened up and bayed. The rascal 
coon-dog climbed the trees and chased the lion out. 
That’s what Moze did I I got to an open space and 
saw him, and was coming up fine when he went down 
over a hollow which ran into the canon. My horse 
tripped and fell, turning clear over with me before 
267 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


he threw me into the brush. I tore my clothes, and 
got this bruise, but wasn’t much hurt. My horse is 
pretty lame.” 

I began a recital of my experience, modestly omit- 
ting the incident where I bravely faced an old lioness. 
Upon consulting my watch, I found I had been 
almost four hours climbing out. At that moment, 
Frank poked a red face over the rim. He was in his 
shirt sleeves, sweating freely, and wore a frown I 
had never seen before. He puffed like a porpoise, 
and at first could hardly speak. 

“ Where — ^were — you — all? ” he panted. “ Say! 
but mebbe this hasn’t been a chase ! Jim an’ Wallace 
an’ me went tumblin’ down after the dogs, each one 
lookin’ out for his perticilar dog, an’ darn me if I 
don’t believe his lion, too. Don took one oozin’ 
down the canon, with me hot-footin’ it after him. 
An’ somewhere he treed thet lion, right below me, in 
a box canon, sort of an offshoot of the second rim, 
an’ I couldn’t locate him. I blamed near killed 
myself more’n once. Look at my knuckles ! Barked 
’em slidin’ about a mile down a smooth wall. I 
thought once the lion had jumped Don, but soon I 
heard him barkin’ again. All thet time I heard 
Sounder, an’ once I heard the pup. Jim yelled, an’ 
somebody was shootin’. But I couldn’t find nobody, 
or make nobody hear me. Thet canon is a mighty 


All Heroes But One 


deceivin’ place. You’d never think so till you go 
down. I wouldn’t climb up it again for all the lions 
^ in Buckskin. Hello, there comes Jim oozin’ up.” 

Jim appeared just over the rim, and when he got 
up to us, dusty, torn and fagged out, with Don, Tige 
and Ranger showing signs of collapse, we all blurted 
out questions. But Jim took his time. 

“ Shore thet canon is one hell of a place,” he began 
finally. “ Where was everybody? Tige and the pup 
went down with me an’ treed a cougar. Yes, they 
did, an’ I set under a pihon boldin’ the pup, v/hile. 
Tige kept the cougar treed. I yelled an’ yelled. 
After about an hour or two, Wallace came poundin’ 
down like a giant. It was a sure thing w^e’d get the 
cougar; an’ Wallace was takin’ his picture when the 
blamed cat jumped. It was embarrassin’, because he 
wasn’t polite about how he jumped. We scattered 
some, an’ when Wallace got his gun, the cougar was 
humpin’ down the slope, an’ he was goin’ so fast an’ 
the pihons was so thick thet Wallace couldn’t get a 
fair shot, an’ missed. Tige an’ the pup was so 
scared by the shots they wouldn’t take the trail again. 
I heard some one shoot about a million times, an’ 
shore thought the cougar was done for. Wallace 
went plungin’ down the slope an’ I followed. I 
couldn’t keep up with him — he shore takes long 
steps — an’ I lost him. I’m reckonin’ he went over 
269 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


the second wall. Then I made tracks for the top. 
Boys, the way you can see an’ hear things down In 
thet canon, an’ the way you can’t hear an’ see things 
is pretty funny.” 

“ If Wallace went over the second rim wall, will 
he get back to-day? ” we all asked. 

“ Shore, there’s no tellln’.” 

We waited, lounged, and slept for three hours, 
Jnd were beginning to worry about our comrade 
I when he hove In sight eastward, along the rim. He 
f walked like a man whose next step would be his last. 
IWhen he reached us, he fell flat, and lay breathing 
heavily for a while. 

“ Somebody once mentioned Israel Putnam’s ascent 
of a hill,” he said slowly. “ With all respect to his- 
tory and a patriot, I wish to say Putnam never saw 
a hill!” 

“ Ooze for camp,” called out Frank. 

Five o’clock found us round a bright fire, all cast- 
ing ravenous eyes at a smoking supper. The smell 
of the Persian meat would have made a wolf of a 
vegetarian. I devoured four chops, and could not 
have been counted In the running. Jim opened a 
can of maple sirup which he had been saving for a 
grand occasion, and Frank went him one better with 
two cans of peaches. How glorious to be hungry — 
to feel the craving for food, and to be grateful for 
270 


All Heroes But One 


it, to realize that the best of life lies in the daily 
needs of existence, and to battle for them ! 

Nothing could be stronger than the simple enumer- 
ation and statement of the facts of Wallace’s expe- 
rience after he left Jim. He chased the cougar, and 
kept it in sight, until it went over the second rim 
wall. Here he dropped over a precipice twenty 
feet high, to alight on a fan-shaped slide which spread 
toward the bottom. It began to slip and move by 
jerks, and then started off steadily, with an increasing 
roar. He rode an avalanche for one thousand feet. 
The jar loosened bowlders from the walls. When 
the slide ‘Stopped, Wallace extricated his feet and 
began to dodge the bowlders. He had only time to 
jump over the large ones or dart to one side out of 
their way. He dared not run. He had to watch 
them coming. One huge stone hurtled over his head 
and smashed a pihon tree below. 

When these had ceased rolling, and he had passed 
down to the red shale, he heard Sounder baying near, 
and knew a cougar had been treed or cornered. 
Hurdling the stones and dead pihons, Wallace ran a 
mile down the slope, only to find he had been deceived 
in the direction. He sheered off to the left. 
Sounder’s illusive bay came up from a deep cleft. 
Wallace plunged into a pihon, climbed to the ground, 
skidded down a solid slide, to come upon an impassa- 
271 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

ble obstacle in the form of a solid wall of red granite. 
Sounder appeared and came to him, evidently having 
given up the chase. 

Wallace consumed four hours in making the 
ascent. In the notch of the curve of the second rim 
wall, he climbed the slippery steps of a waterfall. 
At one point, if he had not been six feet five inches 
tall, he would have been compelled to attempt 
retracing his trail — an impossible task. But his 
height enabled him to reach a root, by which he 
pulled himself up. Sounder he lassoed a la Jones, 
and hauled up. At another spot, which Sounder 
climbed, he lassoed a pinon above, and walked up 
with his feet slipping from under him at every step. 
The knees of his corduroy trousers were holes, as 
were the elbows of his coat. The sole of his left 
boot — which he used most in climbing — was gone, 
and so was his hat. 


272 


CHAPTER XV 


JONES ON COUGARS 

T he mountain lion, or cougar, of our Rocky 
Mountain region, is nothing more nor less 
than the panther. He is a little different in 
shape, color and size, which vary according to his 
environment. The panther of the Rockies is usually 
light, taking the grayish hue of the rocks. He is 
stockier and heavier of build, and stronger of limb 
than the Eastern species, which difference comes from 
climbing mountains and springing down the cliffs 
after his prey. 

In regions accessible to man, or where man is 
encountered even rarely, the cougar is exceedingly 
shy, seldom or never venturing from cover during 
the day. He spends the hours of daylight high on 
the most rugged cliffs, sleeping and basking in the 
sunshine, and watching with wonderfully keen sight 
the valleys below. His hearing equals his sight, and 
if danger threatens, he always hears it in time to 
skulk away unseen. At night he steals down the 
mountain side toward deer or elk he has located dur- 
ing the day. Keeping to the lowest ravines and 
273 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


thickets, he creeps upon his prey. His cunning and 
ferocity are keener and more savage in proportion 
to the length of time he has been without food. As 
he grows hungrier and thinner, his skill and fierce 
strategy correspondingly increase. A well-fed cougar 
will creep upon and secure only about one in seven 
of the deer, elk, antelope or mountain sheep that he 
stalks. But a starving cougar is another animal. He 
creeps like a snake, is as sure on the scent as a 
vulture, makes no more noise than a shadow, and he 
hides behind a stone or bush that would scarcely con- 
ceal a rabbit. Then he springs with terrific force, 
and intensity of purpose, and seldom fails to reach 
his victim, and once the claws of a starved lion 
touch flesh, they never let go. 

A cougar seldom pursues his quarry after he has 
leaped and missed, either from disgust or failure, 
or knowledge that a second attempt would be futile. 
The animal making the easiest prey for the cougar 
is the elk. About every other elk attacked falls a 
victim. Deer are more fortunate, the ratio being one 
dead to five leaped at. The antelope, living on the 
lowlands or upland meadows, escapes nine times out 
of ten; and the mountain sheep, or bighorn, seldom 
falls to the onslaught of his enemy. 

Once the lion gets a hold with the great forepaw, 
every movement of the struggling prey sinks the 
274 


Jones on Cougars 


sharp, hooked claws deeper. Then as quickly as is 
possible, the lion fastens his teeth in the throat of his 
prey and grips till it is dead. In this way elk have 
carried lions for many rods. The lion seldom tears 
the skin of the neck, and never, as is generally sup- L 
posed, sucks the blood of its victim ; but he cuts into 
the side, just behind the foreshoulder, and eats the 
liver first. He rolls the skin back as neatly and 
tightly as a person could do it. When he has gorged 
himself, he drags the carcass into a ravine or dense 
thicket, and rakes leaves, sticks or dirt over it to 
hide it from other animals. Usually he returns to 
his cache on the second night, and after that the 
frequency of his visits depends on the supply of fresh 
prey. In remote regions, unfrequented by man, the 
lion will guard his cache from coyote and buzzards. 

In sex there are about five female lions to one 
male. This is caused by the jealous and vicious dis- 
position of the male. It is a fact that the old Toms 
kill every young lion they can catch. Both male and 
female of the litter suffer alike until after weaning 
time, and then only the males. In this matter wise 
animal logic is displayed by the Toms. The domes- 
tic cat, to some extent, possesses the same trait. If 
the litter is destroyed, the mating time is sure to come 
about regardless of the season. Thus this savage 
trait of the lions prevents overproduction, and breeds 
275 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


a hardy and intrepid race. If by chance or that 
cardinal feature of animal life — the survival of the 
fittest — a young male lion escapes to the weaning 
time, even after that he is persecuted. Young male 
lions have been killed and found to have had their 
flesh beaten until it was a mass of bruises and un- 
doubtedly it had been the work of an old Tom. 
Moreover, old males and females have been killed, 
and found to be in the same bruised condition. A 
feature, and a conclusive one, is the fact that invari- 
ably the female is suckling her young at this period, 
and sustains the bruises in desperately defending her 
litter. 

It is astonishing how cunning, wise and faithful 
an old lioness is. She seldom leaves her kittens. 
From the time they are six weeks old she takes them 
out to train them for the battles of life, and the 
struggle continues from birth to death. A lion 
hardly ever dies naturally. As soon as night 
descends, the lioness stealthily stalks forth, and 
because of her little ones, takes very short steps^ 
The cubs follow, stepping in their mother’s tracks. 
When she crouches for game, each little lion crouches 
also, and each one remains perfectly still until she 
springs, or signals them to come. If she secures the 
prey, they all gorge themselves. After the feast the 
mother takes her back trail, stepping in the tracks 
276 


Jones on Cougars 

she made coming down the mountain. And the cubs 
are very careful to follow suit, and not to leav^e 
marks of their trail in the soft snow. No doubt this 
habit is practiced to keep their deadly enemies in 
ignorance of their existence. The old Toms and 
white hunters are their only foes. Indians never kill 
a lion. This trick of the lions has fooled many a 
hunter, concerning not only the direction, but par- 
ticularly the number. ^ 

The only successful way to hunt lions is with' 
trained dogs. A good hound can trail them for 
several hours after the tracks have been made, and 
on a cloudy or wet day can hold the scent much 
longer. In snow the hound can trail for three or 
four days after the track has been made. 

When Jones was game warden of the Yellowstone 
National Park, he had unexampled opportunities to 
hunt cougars and learn their habits. All the cougars 
in that region of the Rockies made a rendezvous of 
the game preserve. Jones soon procured a pack of 
hounds, but as they had been trained to run deer, 
foxes and coyotes he had great trouble. They would 
break on the trail of these animals, and also on elk 
and antelope just when this was farthest from his 
wish. He soon realized that to train the hounds was 
a sore task. When they refused to come back at his 
call, he stung them with fine shot, and in this man- 
277 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

ner taught obedience. But obedience was not 
enough; the hounds must know how to follow and 
tree a lion. With this in mind, Jones decided to 
catch a lion alive and give his dogs practical lessons. 

A few days after reaching this decision, he dis- 
covered the tracks of two lions in the neighborhood 
of Mt. Everett. The hounds were put on the trail 
and followed it into an abandoned coal shaft. Jones 
recognized this as his opportunity, and taking his 
lasso and an extra rope, he crawled into the hole. 
Not fifteen feet from the opening sat one of the 
cougars, snarling and spitting. Jones promptly 
lassoed it, passed his end of the lasso round a side 
prop of the shaft, and out to the soldiers who had 
followed him. Instructing them not to pull till he 
called, he cautiously began to crawl by the cougar, 
with the intention of getting farther back and roping 
its hind leg, so as to prevent disaster when the 
soldiers pulled it out. He accomplished this, not 
without some uneasiness in regard to the second lion, 
and giving the word to his companions, soon had his 
captive hauled from the shaft and tied so tightly it 
could not move. 

Jones took the cougar and his hounds to an open 
place in the park, where there were trees, and pre- 
pared for a chase. Loosing the lion, he held his 
hounds back a moment, then let them go. Within 

278 


Jones on Cougars 

one hundred yards the cougar climbed a tree, and 
the dogs saw the performance. Taking a forked 
stick, Jones mounted up to the cougar, caught it 
under the jaw with the stick, and pushed it out. 
There was a fight, a scramble, and the cougar dashed 
off to run up another tree. In this manner, he soon 
trained his hounds to the pink of perfection. 

Jones discovered, while in the park, that the 
cougar is king of all the beasts of North America. 
Even a grizzly dashed away in great haste when a 
cougar made his appearance. At the road camp, 
near Mt. Washburn, during the fall of 1904, the 
bears, grizzlies and others, were always hanging 
round the cook tent. There were cougars also, and 
almost every evening, about dust, a big fellow would 
come parading past the tent. The bears would grunt 
furiously and scamper in every direction. It was 
easy to tell when a cougar was in the neighborhood, 
by the peculiar grunts and snorts of the bears, and 
the sharp, distinct, alarmed yelps of coyotes. A lion 
would just as lief kill a coyote as any other animal, 
and he would devour it, too. As to the fighting of 
cougars and grizzlies, that was a mooted question, 
with the credit on the side of the former. 

The story of the doings of cougars, as told in the 
snow, was intensely fascinating and tragical. How 
they stalked deer and elk, crept to within springing 
279 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


distance, then crouched flat to leap, was as easy to 
read as if it had been told in print. The leaps and 
bounds were beyond belief. The longest leap on a 
level measured eighteen and one-half feet. Jones 
trailed a half-grown cougar, which in turn was trail- 
ing a big elk. He found where the cougar had struck 
his game, had clung for many rods, to be dashed off 
by the low limb of a spruce tree. The imprint of 
the body of the cougar was a foot deep in the snow; 
blood and tufts of hair covered the place. But there 
was no sign of the cougar renewing the chase. 

In rare cases cougars would refuse to run, or take 
to trees. One day Jones followed the hounds, eight 
in number, to come on a huge Tom holding the whole 
pack at bay. He walked to and fro, lashing his tail 
from side to side, and when Jones dashed up, he 
coolly climbed a tree. Jones shot the cougar, which, 
I in falling, struck one of the hounds, crippling him. 
This hound would never approach a tree after this 
incident, believing probably that the cougar had 
sprung upon him. 

Usually the hounds chased their quarry into a tree 
long before Jones rode up. It was always desirable 
to kill the animal with the first shot. If the cougar 
was wounded, and fell or jumped among the dogs, 
there was sure to be a terrible fight, and the best dogs 
always received serious injuries, if they were not 
280 


Jones on Cougars 


killed outright. The lion would seize a hound, pull 
him close, and bite him in the brain. 

Jones asserted that a cougar would usually run 
from a hunter, but that this feature was not to be 
relied upon. And a wounded cougar was as danger- 
ous as a tiger. In his hunts Jones carried a shotgun, 
and shells loaded with ball for the cougar, and others 
loaded with fine shot for the hounds. One day, 
about ten miles from the camp, the hounds took a 
trail and ran rapidly, as there were only a few Inches 
of snow. Jones found a large Hon had taken refuge 
in a tree that had fallen against another, and aiming 
at the shoulder of the beast, he fired both barrels. 
The cougar made no sign he had been hit. Jones 
reloaded and fired at the head. The old fellow 
growled fiercely, turned In the tree and walked down 
head first, something he would not have been able 
to do had the tree been upright. The hounds were 
ready for him, but wisely attacked in the rear. Real- 
izing he had been shooting fine shot at the animal, 
Jones began a hurried search for a shell loaded with 
ball. The lion made for him, compelling him to 
dodge behind trees. Even though the hounds kept 
nipping the cougar, the persistent fellow still pursued 
the hunter. At last Jones found the right shell, just 
as the cougar reached for him. Major, the leader 
of the hounds, darted bravely in, and grasped the 
281 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


leg of the beast just in the nick of time. This enabled 
Jones to take aim and fire at close range, which 
ended the fight. Upon examination, it was discov- 
ered the cougar had been half-blinded by the fine 
shot, which accounted for the ineffectual attempts 
he had made to catch Jones. 

The mountain lion rarely attacks a human being 
for the purpose of eating. When hungry he will 
often follow the tracks of people, and under favor- 
able circumstances may ambush them. In the park 
where game is plentiful, no one has ever known a 
cougar to follow the trail of a person; but outside the 
park lions have been known to follow hunters, and 
particularly stalk little children. The Davis family, 
living a few miles north of the park, have had chil- 
dren pursued to the very doors of their cabin. And 
other families relate similar experiences. Jones 
heard of only one fatality, but he believes that if the 
children were left alone in the woods, the cougars 
would creep closer and closer, and when assured there 
was no danger, would spring to kill. 

Jones never heard the cry of a cougar in the 
National Park, which strange circumstance, consider- 
ing the great number of the animals there, he believed 
to be on account of the abundance of game. But 
he had heard it when a boy in Illinois, and when a 
man all over the West, and the cry was always the 
282 


Jones on Cougars 

same, weird and wild, like the scream of a terrified 
woman. He did not understand the significance of 
the cry, unless it meant hunger, or the wailing mourn 
of a lioness for her murdered cubs. 

The destructiveness of this savage species was mur- 
derous. Jones came upon one old Tom’s den, where 
there was a pile of nineteen elk, mostly yearlings. 
Only five or six had been eaten. Jones hunted this 
old fellow for months, and found that the lion killed 
on the average three animals a week. The hounds 
got him up at length, and chased him to the Yellow- 
stone River, which he swam at a point impassable for 
man or horse. One of the dogs, a giant bloodhound 
named Jack, swam the swift channel, kept on after 
the lion, but never returned. All cougars have their 
peculiar traits and habits, the same as other creatures, 
and all old Toms have strongly marked characteris- 
tics, but this one was the most destructive cougar 
Jones ever knew. 

During Jones’s short sojourn as warden in the 
park, he captured numerous cougars alive, and killed 
seventy-two. 


283 


CHAPTER XVI 


KITTY 

I T seemed my eyelids had scarcely touched when 
Jones’s exasperating, yet stimulating, yell 
aroused me. Day was breaking. The moon 
and stars shone with wan luster. A white, snowy 
frost silvered the forest. Old Moze had curled close 
beside me, and now he gazed at me reproachfully 
and shivered. Lawson came hustling in with the 
horses. Jim busied himself around the campfire. 
My fingers nearly froze while I saddled my horse. 

At five o’clock we were trotting up the slope of 
Buckskin, bound for the section of ruined rim wall 
where we had encountered the convention of cougars. 
Hoping to save time, we took a short cut, and were 
soon crossing deep ravines. 

The sunrise coloring the purple curtain of cloud 
over the canon was too much for me, and I lagged 
on a high ridge to watch it, thus falling behind my 
more practical companions. A far-off “ Waa-hoo ! ” 
brought me to a realization of the day’s stern duty, 
and I hurried Satan forward on the trail. 

284 


Kitty 


I came suddenly upon our leader, leading his horse 
through the scrub pihon on the edge of the canon, 
and I knew at once something had happened, for he 
was closely scrutinizing the ground. 

“ I declare this beats me all hollow! ” began Jones. 
“We might be hunting rabbits instead of the wildest 
animals on the continent. We jumped a bunch of 
lions in this clump of pihon. There must have been 
at least four. I thought first we’d run upon an old 
lioness with cubs, but all the trails were made by 
full-grown lions. Moze took one north along the 
rim, same as the other day, but the lion got away 
quick. Frank saw one lion. Wallace is following 
Sounder down into the first hollow. Jim has gone 
over the rim wall after Don. There you are ! Four 
lions playing tag in broad daylight on top of this 
wall! I’m inclined to believe Clarke didn’t exag- 
gerate. But confound the luck! the hounds have 
split again. They’re doing their best, of course, and 
it’s up to us to stay with them. I’m afraid we’ll 
lose some of them. Hello ! I hear a signal. That’s 
from Wallace. Waa-hoo! Waa-hoo! There he is, 
coming out of the hollow.” 

The tall Californian reached us presently with 
Sounder beside him. He reported that the hound had 
chased a lion into an impassable break. We then 
joined Frank on a jutting crag of the canon wall. 

285 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


“ Waa-hoo ! ” yelled Jones. There was no answer 
except the echo, and it rolled up out of the chasm 
with strange, hollow mockery. 

“ Don took a cougar down this slide,” said Frank. 
“ I saw the brute, an’ Don was makin’ him hump. 
A — ha I There! Listen to thet! ” 

From the green and yellow depths soared the faint 
yelp of a hound. 

“ That’s Don! that’s Don! ” cried Jones. “ He’s 
hot on something. Where’s Sounder? Hyar, 
Sounder ! By George ! there he goes down the slide. 
Hear him ! He’s opened up ! Hi ! Hi ! Hi ! ” 

The deep, full mellow bay of the hound came 
ringing on the clear air. 

“ Wallace, you go down. Frank and I will climb 
out on that pointed crag. Grey, you stay here. 
Then we’ll have the slide between us. Listen and 
watch ! ” 

From my promontory I watched Wallace go down 
with his gigantic strides, sending the rocks rolling 
and cracking; and then I saw Jones and Frank crawl 
out to the end of a crumbling ruin of yellow wall, 
which threatened to go splintering and thundering 
down into the abyss. 

I thought, as I listened to the penetrating voice of 
the hound, that nowhere on earth could there be a 
grander scene for wild action, wild life. My position 
286 


Kitty 


afforded a commanding view over a hundred miles 
of the noblest and most sublime work of nature. The 
rim wall where I stood sheered down a thousand feet, 
to meet a long wooded slope which cut abruptly off 
into another giant precipice; a second long slope 
descended, and jumped off into what seemed the 
grave of the world. Most striking in that vast void 
were the long, irregular points of rim wall, protrud- 
ing into the Grand Canon. From Point Sublime to 
the Pink Cliffs of Utah there were twelve of these 
colossal capes, miles apart, some sharp, some round, 
some blunt, all rugged and bold. The great chasm 
in the middle was full of purple smoke. It seemed 
a mighty sepulcher from which misty fumes rolled 
upward. The turrets, mesas, domes, parapets and 
escarpments of yellow and red rock gave the appear- 
ance of an architectural work of giant hands. The 
wonderful river of silt, the blood-red, mystic and 
sullen Rio Colorado, lay hidden except in one place 
far away, where it glimmered wanly. Thousands of 
colors were blended before my rapt gaze. Yellow 
predominated, as the walls and crags lorded it over 
the lower cliffs and tables ; red glared in the sunlight ; 
green softened these two, and then purple and violet, 
gray, blue and the darker hues shaded away into 
dim and distinct obscurity. 

Excited yells from my companions on the other 
287 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

crag recalled me to the living aspect of the scene. 
Jones was leaning far down in a niche, at seeming 
great hazard of life, yelling with all the power of his 
strong lungs. Frank stood still farther out on a 
cracked point that made me tremble, and his yell 
reenforced Jones’s. From far below rolled up a 
chorus of thrilling bays and yelps, and Jim’s call, 
faint, but distinct on that wonderfully thin air, with 
its unmistakable note of warning. 

Then on the slide I saw a lion headed for the rim 
wall and climbing fast. I added my exultant cry 
to the medley, and I stretched my arms wide to that 
illimitable void and gloried in a moment full to the 
brim of the tingling joy of existence. I did not con- 
sider how painful it must have been to the toiling 
lion. It was only the spell of wild environment, of 
perilous yellow crags, of thin, dry air, of voice of 
man and dog, of the stinging expectation of »harp 
action, of life. 

I watched the lion growing bigger and bigger. I 
saw Don and Sounder run from the pihon into the 
open slide, and heard their impetuous burst of wild 
yelps as they saw their game. Then Jones’s clarion 
yell made me bound for my horse. I reached him, j 
was about to mount, when Moze came trotting 
toward me. I caught the old gladiator. When he 
heard the chorus from below, he plunged like a mad 
288 


Kitty 


bull. With both arms round him I held on. I vowed 
never to let him get down that slide. He howled 
and tore, but I held on. My big black horse with 
. ears laid back stood like a rock. 

I heard the pattering of little sliding rocks below; 
stealthy padded footsteps and hard panting breaths, 
almost like coughs; then the lion passed out of the 
slide not twenty feet away. He saw us, and sprang 
into the pihon scrub with the leap of a scared deer. 

Samson himself could no longer have held Moze. 
Away he darted with his sharp, angry bark. I flung 
myself upon Satan and rode out to see Jones ahead 
and Frank flashing through the green on the white 
horse. 

At the end of the pihon thicket Satan overhauled 
Jones’s bay, and we entered the open forest together. 
We saw Frank glinting across the dark pines. 

“Hi! Hi! ” yelled the Colonel. 

No need was there to whip or spur those magnifi- 
cent horses. They were fresh; the course was open, 
^ and smooth as a racetrack, and the impelling chorus 
of the hounds was in full blast. I gave Satan a loose 
rein, and he stayed neck and neck with the bay. 
There was not a log, nor a stone, nor a gully. The 
hollows grew wider and shallower as we raced along, 
and presently disappeared altogether. The lion was 
running straight from the canon, and the certainty 
289 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

that he must sooner or later take to a tree, brought 
from me a yell of irresistible wild joy. 

“ Hi I Hi ! Hi ! ” answered Jones. 

The whipping wind with its pine-scented fra- 
grance, warm as the breath of summer, was intoxicat- 
ing as wine. The huge pines, too kingly for close 
communion with their kind, made wide arches under 
which the horses stretched out long and low, with 
supple, springy, powerful strides. Frank’s yell rang 
clear as a bell. We saw him curve to the right, and 
took his yell as a signal for us to cut across. Then 
we began to close in on him, and to hear more dis- 
tinctly the baying of the hounds. 

“ Hi ! Hi ! Hi ! Hi ! ” bawled Jones, and his great 
trumpet voice rolled down the forest glades. 

“ Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! ” I screeched, in wild recog- 
nition of the spirit of the moment. 

Fast as they were flying, the bay and the black 
responded to our cries, and quickened, strained and 
lengthened under us till the trees sped by in blurs. 

There, plainly in sight ahead ran the hounds, Don 
leading. Sounder next, and Moze not fifty yards 
behind a desperately running lion. 

There are all-satisfying moments of life. That 
chase through the open forest, under the stately 
pines, with the wild, tawny quarry in plain sights; and 
the glad staccato yelps of the hounds filling my ears 
290 


*IC ■ 



The lion country 




A few feet above us, in the large branches, crouched our first lion. 


Kitty 


and swelling my heart, with the splendid action of 
my horse carrying me on the wings of the wind, was 
glorious answer and fullness to the call and hunger 
of a hunter’s blood. 

But as such moments must be, they were brief. 
The lion leaped gracefully Into the air, splintering 
the bark from a pine fifteen feet up, and crouched on 
a limb. The hounds tore madly round the tree. 

“ Full-grown female,” said Jones calmly, as we 
dismounted, “ and she’s ours. We’ll call her Kitty.” 

Kitty was a beautiful creature, long, slender, 
glossy, with white belly and black-tipped ears and 
tail. She did not resemble the heavy, grimfaced 
brute that always hung in the air of my dreams. 
A low, brooding menacing murmur, that was not a 
snarl nor a growl, came from her. She watched the 
dogs with bright, steady eyes, and never so much as 
looked at us. 

The dogs were worth attention, even from us, who 
certainly did not need to regard them from her per- 
sonally hostile point of view. Don stood straight up, 
with his forepaws beating the air; he walked on his 
hind legs like the trained dog In the circus ; he yelped 
continuously, as if It agonized him to see the lion 
safe out of his reach. Sounder had lost his Identity. 
Joy had unhinged his mind and had made him a dog 
of double personality. He had always been unsoci' 
?91 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


able with me, never responding to my attempts to 
caress him, but now he leaped into my arms and 
licked my face. He had always hated Jones till 
that moment, when he raised his paws to his master’s 
breast. And perhaps more remarkable, time and 
time again he sprang up at Satan’s nose, whether to 
bite him or kiss him, I could not tell. Then old 
Moze, he of Grand Canon fame, made the delirious 
antics of his canine fellows look cheap. There was a 
small, dead pine that had fallen against a drooping 
branch of the tree Kitty had taken refuge in, and up 
this narrow ladder Moze began to climb. He was 
fifteen feet up, and Kitty had begun to shift uneasily, 
when Jones saw him. 

“ Hyar ! you wild coon-chaser I Git out of that ! 
Come down ! Come down ! ” 

But Jones might have been in the bottom of the 
canon for all Moze heard or cared. Jones removed 
his coat, carefully coiled his lasso, and began to go 
hand and knee up the leaning pine. 

, “ Hyar! dod-blast you, git down! ” yelled Jones, 

^ and he kicked Moze off. The persistent hound 
returned, and followed Jones to a height of twenty 
feet, where again he was thrust off. 

“ Hold him, one of you ! ” called Jones. 

“ Not me,” said Frank, ‘‘ I’m lookin’ out for 
myself.” 


292 


Kitty 

“ Same here,” I cried, with a camera in one hand 
and a rifle in the other. “ Let Moze climb if he 
likes.” 

Climb he did, to be kicked off again. But he 
went back. It was a way he had. Jones at last 
recognized either his own waste of time or Moze’s 
greatness, for he desisted, allowing the hound to 
keep close after him. 

The cougar, becoming uneasy, stood up, reached 
for another limb, climbed out upon it, and peering 
down, spat hissingly at Jones. But he kept steadily 
on with Moze close on his heels. I snapped my 
camera on them when Kitty was not more than fifteen 
feet above them. As Jones reached the snag which 
upheld the leaning tree, she ran out on her branch, 
and leaped into an adjoining pine. It was a good 
long jump, and the weight of the animal bent the 
limb alarmingly. 

Jones backed down, and laboriously began to climb 
the other tree. As there were no branches low 
down, he had to hug the trunk with arms and legs, 
as a boy climbs. His lasso hampered his progress^ | 
When the slow ascent was accomplished up to the 
first branch, Kitty leaped back into her first perch. 
Strange to say Jones did not grumble; none of his 
characteristic impatience manifested itself here. I 
supposed with him all the exasperating waits and vex- 
293 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


atious obstacles were little things preliminary to the 
real work, to which he had now come. He was 
calm and deliberate, and slid down the pine, walked 
back to the leaning tree, and while resting a moment, 
shook his lasso at Kitty. This action fitted him, 
somehow; it was so compatible with his grim assur- 
ance. 

To me, and to Frank, also, for that matter, it was 
all new and startling, and we were as excited as 
the dogs. We kept continually moving about, Frank 
, mounted, and I afoot, to get good views of the 
cougar. When she crouched as if to leap, it was 
almost impossible to remain under the tree, and we 
kept moving. 

Once more Jones crept up on hands and knees. 
Moze walked the slanting pine like a rope performer. 
Kitty began to grow restless. This time she showed 
both anger and impatience, but did not yet appear 
frightened. She growled low and deep, opened her 
mouth and hissed, and swung her tufted tail faster 
and faster. 

“ Look out, Jones ! look out ! ” yelled Frank warn- 
ingly. 

Jones, who had reached the trunk of the tree, 
halted and slipped round it, placing it between him 
and Kitty. She had advanced on her limb, a few 
feet above Jones, and threateningly hung over. 

294 



‘'The cougar spat hissingly at Jones” 



Sought safety in another pine 




Kitty 

Jones backed down a little till she crossed to another 
branch, then he resumed his former position. 

“ Watch below,” called he. 

Hardly any doubt was there as to how we watched. 
Frank and I were all eyes, except very high and 
throbbing hearts. When Jones thrashed the lasso 
at Kitty we both yelled. She ran out on the branch 
and jumped. This time she fell short of her point, 
clutched a dead snag, which broke, letting her 
through a bushy branch from where she hung head 
downward. For a second she swung free, then 
reaching toward the tree caught it with front paws, 
ran down like a squirrel, and leaped off when thirty 
feet from the ground. The action was as rapid as 
it was astonishing. 

Like a yellow rubber ball she bounded up, and 
fled with the yelping hounds at her heels. The chase 
was short. At the end of a hundred yards Moze 
caught up with her and nipped her. She whirled 
with savage suddenness, and lunged at Moze, but he 
cunningly eluded the vicious paws. Then she sought 
safety in another pine. 

Frank, who was as quick as the hounds, almost 
rode them down in his eagerness. While Jones 
descended from his perch, I led the two horses down 
the forest. 

This time the cougar was well out on a low spread- 
295 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

mg branch. Jones conceived the idea of raising the 
loop of his lasso on a long pole, but as no pole of 
sufficient length could be found, he tried from the 
back of his horse. The bay walked forward well 
enough; when, however, he got under the beast and 
heard her growl, he reared and almost threw Jones. 
Frank’s horse could not be persuaded to go near the 
tree. Satan evinced no fear of the cougar, and with- 
out flinching carried Jones directly beneath the limb, 
and stood with cars back and forelegs stiff. 

“ Look at that! look at that! ” cried Jones, as the 
wary cougar pawed the loop aside. Three successive 
times did Jones have the lasso just ready to drop over 
her neck, when she flashed a yellow paw and knocked 
the noose awry. Then she leaped far out over the 
waiting dogs, struck the ground with a light, sharp 
thud, and began to run with the speed of a deer. 
Frank’s cowboy training now stood us in good stead. 
He was off like a shot and turned the cougar from 
the direction of the canon. Jones lost not a moment 
in pursuit, and I, left with Jones’s badly frightened 
bay, got going in time to see the race, but not to 
assist. For several hundred yards Kitty made the 
hounds appear slow. Don, being swiftest, gained 
on her steadily toward the close of the dash, and 
presently was running under her upraised tail. On 
the next jump he nipped her. She turned and sent 
296 


Kitty 


him reeling. Sounder came flying up to bite her 
flank, and at the same moment fierce old Moze 
closed in on her. The next instant a struggling mass ^ 
whirled on the ground. Jones and Frank, yelling ^ 
like demons, almost rode over it. The cougar broke 
from her assailants, and dashing away leaped on the 
first tree. It was a half-dead pine with short snags 
low down and a big branch extending out over a 
ravine. 

“ I think we can hold her now,” said Jones. The 
tree proved to be a most difficult one to climb. Jones 
made several ineffectual attempts before he reached 
the first limb, which broke, giving him a hard fall. 
This calmed me enough to make me take notice of 
Jones’s condition. He was wet with sweat and cov- 
ered with the black pitch from the pines; his shirt 
was slit down the arm, and there was blood on his 
temple and his hand. The next attempt began by 
placing a good-sized log against the tree, and proved 
to be the necessary help. Jones got hold of the 
second limb and pulled himself up. 

As he kept on, Kitty crouched low as if to spring 
upon him. Again Frank and I sent warning calls 
to him, but he paid no attention to us or to the 
cougar, and continued to climb. This worried Kitty 
as much as it did us. She began to move on the 
snags, stepping from one to the other, every moment 
297 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

snarling at Jones, and then she crawled up. The 
big branch evidently took her eye. She tried several 
times to climb up to it, but small snags close together 
made her distrustful. She walked uneasily out upon 
two limbs, and as they bent with her weight she 
hurried back. Twice she did this, each time looking 
up, showing her desire to leap to the big branch. 
Her distress became plainly evident; a child could 
have seen that she feared she would fall. At length, 
in desperation, she spat at Jones, then ran out and 
leaped. She all but missed the branch, but succeeded 
in holding to it and swinging to safety. Then she 
turned to her tormentor, and gave utterance to most 
savage sounds. As she did not intimidate her pur- 
suer, she retreated out on the branch, which sloped 
down at a deep angle, and crouched on a network of 
small limbs. 

When Jones had worked up a little farther, he 
commanded a splendid position for his operations. 
Kitty was somewhat below him in a desirable place, 
yet the branch she was on joined the tree considerably 
above his head. Jones cast his lasso. It caught on 
a snag. Throw after throw he made with like result. 
He recoiled and recast nineteen times, to my count, 
when Frank made a suggestion. 

“ Rope those dead snags an’ break them off.” 

This practical idea Jones soon carried out, which 

298 


Kitty 


left him a clear path. The next fling of the lariat 
caused the cougar angrily to shake her head. Again 
Jones sent the noose flying. She pulled it off her 
back and bit it savagely. 

Though very much excited, I tried hard to keep 
sharp, keen faculties alert so as not to miss a single 
detail of the thrilling scene. But I must have failed, 
for all of a sudden I saw how Jones was standing in 
the tree, something I had not before appreciated. 
He had one hand hold, which he could not use while 
recoiling the lasso, and his feet rested upon a pre- 
cariously frail-appearing, dead snag. He made 
eleven casts of the lasso, all of which bothered Kitty, 
but did not catch her. The twelfth caught her front 
paw. Jones jerked so quickly and hard that he 
almost lost his balance, and he pulled the noose off. 
Patiently he recoiled the lasso. 

“ That’s what I want. If I can get her front 
paw she’s ours. My idea is to pull her off the limb,' 
let her hang there, and then lasso her hind legs.” 

Another cast, the unlucky thirteenth, settled the 
loop perfectly round her neck. She chewed on the. 
rope with her front teeth and appeared to have diffi- 
culty in holding it. ■ 

“Easy! Easy! Ooze thet rope ! Easy! ’’yelled 
the cowboy. 

Cautiously Jones took up the slack and slowly 
299 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

tightened the nose, then with a quick jerk, fastened 
it close round her neck. 

We heralded this achievement with yells of tri- 
umph that made the forest ring. 

Our triumph was short-lived. Jones had hardly 
moved when the cougar shot straight out into the 
air. The lasso caught on a branch, hauling her up 
short, and there she hung in mid air, writhing, 
struggling and giving utterance to sounds terribly 
human. For several seconds she swung, slowly 
descending, in which frenzied time I, with ruling 
passion uppermost, endeavored to snap a picture of 
her. 

The unintelligible commands Jones was yelling to 
Frank and me ceased suddenly with a sharp crack 
of breaking wood. Then crash! Jones fell out of 
the tree. The lasso streaked up, ran over the limb, 
while the cougar dropped pell-mell into the bunch of 
waiting, howling dogs. 

The next few moments it was impossible for me 
to distinguish what actually transpired. A great 
flutter of leaves whirled round a swiftly changing 
ball of brown and black and yellow, from which 
came a fiendish clamor. 

Then I saw Jones plunge down the ravine and 
bounce here and there in mad efforts to catch the 
whipping lasso. He was roaring in a way that made 
300 


Kitty 

all his former yells merely whispers. Starting to 
run, I tripped on a root, fell prone on my face into 
the ravine, and rolled over and over until I brought 
up with a bump against a rock. r 

What a tableau riveted my gaze! It staggered . 
me so I did not think of my camera. I stood trans- 
fixed not fifteen feet from the cougar. She sat on 
her haunches with body well drawn back by the 
taut lasso to which Jones held tightly. Don was 
standing up with her, upheld by the hooked claws in 
his head. The cougar had her paws outstretched; 
her mouth open wide, showing long, cruel, white 
fangs; she was trying to pull the head of the dog to 
her. Don held back with all his power, and so did 
Jones. Moze and Sounder were tussling round her 
body. Suddenly both ears of the dog pulled out, 
slit into ribbons. Don had never uttered a sound, 
and once free, he made at her again with open jaws. 
One blow sent him reeling and stunned. Then began 
again that wrestling whirl. 

“ Beat off the dogs! Beat off the dogs! ” roared 
Jones. “ She’ll kill them! She’ll kill them! ” 

Frank and I seized clubs and ran in upon the con- 
fused furry mass, forgetful of peril to ourselves. In 
the wild contagion of such a savage moment the 
minds of men revert wholly to primitive instincts. 
We swung our clubs and yelled; we fought all over 
301 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

the bottom of the ravine, crashing through the 
bushes, over logs and stones. I actually felt the soft 
fur of the cougar at one fleeting instant. The dogs 
had the strength born of insane fighting spirit. At 
last we pulled them to where Don lay, half-stunned, 
and with an arm tight round each, I held them while 
Frank turned to help Jones. 

The disheveled Jones, bloody, grim as death, his 
heavy jaw locked, stood holding to the lasso. The 
cougar, her sides shaking with short, quick pants, 
crouched low on the ground with eyes of purple fire. 

For God’s sake, get a half-hitch on the saplin’ I ” 
called the cowboy. 

His quick grasp of the situation averted a tragedy. 
Jones was nearly exhausted, even as he was beyond 
thinking for himself or giving up. The cougar 
sprang, a yellow, frightful flash. Even as she was 
in the air, Jones took a quick step to one side and 
dodged as he threw his lasso round the sapling. 
She missed him, but one alarmingly outstretched paw 
grazed his shoulder. A twist of Jones’s big hand 
fastened the lasso — and Kitty was a prisoner. While 
she fought, rolled, twisted, bounded, whirled, 
writhed with hissing, snarling fury, Jones sat mop- 
ping the sweat and blood from his face. 

Kitty’s efforts were futile; she began to weaken 
from the choking. Jones took another rope, and 

302 


Kitty 

tightening a noose around her back paws, which he 
lassoed as she rolled over, he stretched her out. She 
began to contract her supple body, gave a savage, 
convulsive spring, which pulled Jones flat on the 
ground, then the terrible wrestling started again. 
The lasso slipped over her back paws. She leaped 
the whole length of the other lasso. Jones caught 
It and fastened it more securely; but this precaution 
proved unnecessary, for she suddenly sank down 
either exhausted or choked, and gasped with her 
tongue hanging out. Frank slipped the second noose 
over her back paws, and Jones did likewise with a 
third lasso over her right front paw. These lassoes 
Jones tied to different saplings. 

“ Now you are a good Kitty,” said Jones, kneeling 
by her. He took a pair of clippers from his hip 
pocket, and grasping a paw in his powerful fist he 
calmly clipped the points of the dangerous claws. 
This done, he called to me to get the collar and 
chain that were tied to his saddle. I procured them 
and hurried back. Then the old buffalo hunter loos- 
ened the lasso which was round her neck, and as soon 
as she could move her head, he teased her to bite a 
club. She broke two good sticks with her sharp 
teeth, but the third, being solid, did not break. 
While she was chewing it Jones forced her head 
back and placed his heavy knee on the club. In a 
303 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


twinkling he had strapped the collar round her neck. 
The chain he made fast to the sapling. After remov- 
ing the club from her mouth he placed his knee on 
her neck, and while her head was in this helpless 
position he dexterously slipped a loop of thick copper 
wire over her nose, pushed it back and twisted it 
tight. Following this, all done with speed and pre- 
cision, he took from his pocket a piece of steel rod, 
perhaps one-quarter of an inch thick, and five inches 
long. He pushed this between Kitty’s jaws, just 
back of her great white fangs, and in front of the 
copper wire. She had been shorn of her sharp 
w^eapons; she was muzzled, bound, helpless, an object 
to pity. 

Lastly Jones removed the three lassoes. Kitty 
slowly gathered her lissom body in a ball and lay 
panting, with the same brave wildfire in her eyes. 
Jones stroked her black-tipped ears and ran his hand 
down her glossy fur. All the time he had kept up a 
low monotone, talking to her in the strange language 
he used toward animals. Then he rose to his feet. 

“ We’ll go back to camp now, and get a pack- 
saddle and horse,” he said. “ She’ll be safe here. 
We’ll rope her again, tic her up, throw her over a 
pack-saddle, and take her to camp.” 

To my utter bewilderment the hounds suddenly 
commenced fighting among themselves. Of all the 

304 


Kitty 

vicious bloody dog-fights I ever saw that was the 
worst. I began to belabor them with a club, and 
, Frank sprang to my assistance. Beating had no 
apparent effect. We broke a dozen sticks, and then 
Frank grappled with Moze and I with Sounder. 
Don kept on fighting either one till Jones secured 
him. Then we all took a rest, panting and weary. 

“What’s it mean?” I ejaculated, appealing to 
Jones. 

“ Jealous, that’s all. Jealous over the lion.” 

We all remained seated, men and hounds, a sweaty, 
dirty, bloody, ragged group. I discovered I was 
sorry for Kitty. I forgot all the carcasses of deer 
and horses, the brutality of this species of cat; and 
even forgot the grim, snarling yellow devil that had 
leaped at me. Kitty was beautiful and helpless. 
How brave she was, too I No sign of fear shone in 
1 her wonderful eyes, only hate, defiance, watchfulness. 

On the ride back to camp Jones expressed himself 
thus: “ How happy I am that I can keep this lion 
and the others we are going to capture, for my own ! 
When I was in the Yellowstone Park I did not get to 
keep one of the many I captured. The military offi- 
cials took them from me.” 

When we reached camp Lawson was absent, but 
fortunately Old Baldy browsed near at hand, and 
was easily caught. Frank said he would rather take 
305 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

Old Baldy for the cougar than any other horse we 
had. Leaving me in camp, he and Jones rode off to 
fetch Kitty. 

About five o’clock they came trotting up through 
the forest with Jim, who had fallen in with them 
on the way. Old Baldy had remained true to his 
fame — nothing, not even a cougar bothered him. 
Kitty, evidently no worse for her experience, was 
chained to a pine tree about fifty feet from the camp- 
fire. 

Wallace came riding wearily in, and when he saw 
the captive, he greeted us with an exultant yell. He 
got there just in time to see the first special features 
of Kitty’s captivity. The hounds surrounded her, 
and could not be called off. We had to beat them. 
Whereupon the six jealous canines fell to fighting 
among themselves, and fought so savagely as to be 
deaf to our cries and insensible to blows. They had 
to be torn apart and chained. 

About six o’clock Lawson loped in with the horses. 
Of course he did not know we had a cougar, and no 
one seemed interested enough to inform him. Per- 
haps only Frank and I thought of it; but I saw a 
merry snap in Frank’s eyes, and kept silent. Kitty 
had hidden behind the pine tree. Lawson, astride 
Jim’s pack horse, a crochety animal, reined in just 
abreast of the tree, and leisurely threw his leg over 
306 


Kitty 


the saddle. Kitty leaped out to the extent of her 
chain, and fairly exploded in a frightful cat-spit. 

Lawson had stated some time before that he was 
afraid of cougars, which was a weakness he need 
not have divulged in view of what happened. The 
horse plunged, throwing him ten feet, and snorting 
in terror, stampeded with the rest of the bunch and 
disappeared among the pines. 

“ Why the hell didn’t you tell a feller? ” reproach- 
fully growled the Arizonian. Frank and Jim held 
each other upright, and the rest of us gave way to 
as hearty if not as violent mirth. 

We had a gay supper, during which Kitty sat by 
her pine and watched our every movement. 

“ We’ll rest up for a day or two,” said Jones. 
“ Things have commenced to come our way. If I’m 
not mistaken we’ll bring an old Tom alive into camp. 
But it would never do for us to get a big Tom in the 
fix we had Kitty to-day. You see, I wanted to lasso 
her front paw, pull her off the limb, tie my end of 
the lasso to the tree, and while she hung I’d go down 
and rope her hind paws. It all went wrong to-day, 
and was as tough a job as I ever handled.” 

Not until late next morning did Lawson corral all 
the horses. That day we lounged in camp mending 
broken bridles, saddles, stirrups, lassoes, boots, trou- 
sers, leggins, shirts and even broken skins. 

307 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


During this time I found Kitty a most interesting 
study. She reminded me of an enormous yellow 
kitten. She did not appear wild or untamed until 
approached. Then she slowly sank down, laid back 
her ears, opened her mouth and hissed and spat, at 
the same time throwing both paws out viciously. 
Kitty may have rested, but did not sleep. At times 
she fought her chain, tugging and straining at It, and 
trying to bite It through. Everything in reach she 
clawed, particularly the bark of the tree. Once she 
tried to hang herself by leaping over a low limb. 
When any one walked by her she crouched low, evi- 
dently imagining herself unseen. If one of us walked 
toward her, or looked at her, she did not crouch. At 
other times, noticeably when no one was near, she 
would roll on her back and extend all four paws in 
the air. Her actions were beautiful, soft, noiseless, 
quick and subtle. 

The day passed, as all days pass in camp, swiftly 
and pleasantly, and twilight stole down upon us 
round the ruddy fire. The wind roared in the pines 
and lulled to repose; the lonesome, friendly coyote 
barked; the bells on the hobbled horses jingled 
sweetly; the great watch stars blinked out of the blue. 

The red glow of the burning logs lighted up 
Jones’s calm, cold face. Tranquil, unalterable and 
peaceful it seemed; yet beneath the peace I thought 

308 


Kitty 


I saw a suggestion of wild restraint, of mystery, of 
unslaked life. 

Strangely enough, his next words confirmed my 
^last thought. 

“ For forty years IVe had an ambition. It’s to 
get possession of an island in the Pacific, somewhere 
between Vancouver and Alaska, and then go to 
Siberia and capture a lot of Russian sables. I’d put 
them on the island and cross them with our silver 
foxes. I’m going to try it next year if I can find the 
time.” 

The ruling passion and character determine our 
lives. Jones was sixty-three years old, yet the thing 
that had ruled and absorbed his mind was still as 
strong as the longing for freedom in Kitty’s wild 
heart. 

Hours after I had crawled into my sleeping-bag, 
in the silence of night I heard her working to get 
I free. In darkness she was most active, restless, 
intense. I heard the clink of her chain, the crack of 
her teeth, the scrape of her claws. How tireless she 
was. I recalled the wistful light in her eyes that 
saw, no doubt, far beyond the campfire to the yellow 
crags, to the great downward slopes, to freedom. I 
slipped my elbow out of the bag and raised myself. 
Dark shadows were hovering under the pines. I saw 
Kitty’s eyes gleam like sparks, and I seemed to see 
309 


The Last of the Plainsmen 

in them the hate, the fear, the terror she had of the 
clanking thing that bound her. 

I shivered, perhaps from the cold night wind 
which moaned through the pines ; I saw the stars glit- 
tering pale and far off, and under their wan light the 
still, set face of Jones, and blanketed forms of my 
other companions. 

The last thing I remembered before dropping into 
dreamless slumber was hearing a bell tinkle in the 
forest, which I recognized as the one I had placed 
on Satan. 


310 


CHAPTER XVII 


CONCLUSION 

K itty was not the only cougar brought Into 
camp alive. The ensuing days were fruit- 
ful of cougars and adventure. There were 
more wild rides to the music of the baying hounds, 
and more heart-breaking canon slopes to conquer, and 
more swinging, tufted tails and snarling savage faces 
In the pihons. Once again, I am sorry to relate, I 
had to glance down the sights of the little Remington, 
and I saw blood on the stones. Those eventful days 
sped by all too soon. — 

When the time for parting came it took no little 
discussion to decide on the quickest way of getting 
me to a railroad. I never fully appreciated the 
Inaccessibility of the SIwash until the question arose 
of finding a way out. To return on our back trail 
would require two weeks, and to go out by the trail ^ 
north to Utah meant half as much time over the 
same kind of desert. Lawson came to our help, 
however, with the Information that an occasional 
prospector or horse hunter crossed the canon from the 
Saddle, where a trail led down to the river. 

311 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


“ I’ve heard the trail is a bad one,” said Lawson, 
“ an’ though I never seen it, I reckon it could be 
found. After we get to the Saddle we’ll build two 
fires on one of the high points an’ keep them burnin’ 
well after dark. If Mr. Bass, who lives on the other 
side, sees the fires he’ll come down his trail next 
mornin’ an’ meet us at the river. He keeps a boat 
there. This is takin’ a chance, but I reckon it’s 
worth while.” 

; So it was decided that Lawson and Frank would 
try to get me out by way of the canon; Wallace 
intended to go by the Utah route, and Jones was to 
return at once to his range and his buffalo. 

That night round the campfire we talked over the 
many incidents of the hunt. Jones stated he had 
never in his life come so near getting his “ everlast- 
ing ” as when the big bay horse tripped on a canon 
slope and rolled over him. Notwithstanding the 
’’respect with which we regarded his statement we held 
different opinions. Then, with the unfailing opti- 
mism of hunters, we planned another hunt for the 
next year. 

“ I’ll tell you what,” said Jones. “ Up in Utah 
there’s a wild region called Pink Cliffs. A few poor 
sheep-herders try to raise sheep in the valleys. They 
wouldn’t be so poor if it was not for the grizzly and 
black bears that live on the sheep. We’ll go up 

312 


Conclusion 


there, find a place where grass and water can be had, 
and camp. We’ll notify the sheep-herders we are 
there for business. They’ll be only too glad to hustle 
In with news of a bear, and we can get the hounds 
on the trail by sun-up. I’ll have a dozen hounds 
then, maybe twenty, and all trained. We’ll put every 
black bear we chase up a tree, and we’ll rope and tie 
him. As to grizzlies — ^well, I’m not saying so much. 
They can’t climb trees, and they are not afraid of a 
pack of hounds. If we rounded up a grizzly, got 
him cornered, and threw a rope on him — there’d be 
some fun, eh, Jim?.” 

“ Shore there would,” Jim replied. 

On the strength of this I stored up food for future 
thought and thus reconciled myself to bidding fare- 
well to the purple canons and shaggy slopes of Buck- 
skin Mountain. 

At five o’clock next morning we were all stirring. 
Jones yelled at the hounds and untangled Kitty’s 
chain. Jim was already busy with the biscuit dough. 
Frank shook the frost off the saddles. Wallace was 
packing. The merry jangle of bells came from the I 
forest, and presently Lawson appeared driving In 
the horses. I caught my black and saddled him, 
then realizing we were soon to part I could not resist 
giving him a hug. 

An hour later we all stood at the head of the trail 

313 


The Last of the Plainsmen 


leading down into the chasm. The east gleamed 
rosy red. Powell’s Plateau loomed up in the dis- 
tance, and under it showed the dark-fringed dip in 
the rim called the Saddle. Blue mist floated round 
the mesas and domes. 

Lawson led the way down the trail. Frank started 
Old Baldy with the pack. 

“ Come,” he called, “ be oozin’ along.” 

I spoke the last good-by and turned Satan into the 
narrow trail. When I looked back Jones stood on 
the rim with the fresh glow of dawn shining on his 
face. The trail was steep, and claimed my attention 
and care, but time and time again I gazed back. 
Jones waved his hand till a huge jutting cliff walled 
him from view. Then I cast my eyes on the rough 
descent and the wonderful void beneath me. In my 
mind lingered a pleasing consciousness of my last 
sight of the old plainsman. He fitted the scene; he 
belonged there among the silent pines and the yellow 
crags. 


THE END 


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Continued from preceding page — 


JEB HUTTON : The Story of a Georgia Boy 

BY JAMES B. CONNOLLY 

' Jeb had a good head under the sandy hair and a stout heart in his 
big body. The story is calculated to make the young reader square 
his shoulders and feel like taking hold of the hardest job he can find. 

THE JESTER OF ST. TIMOTHY’S 

BY ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER 

The Jester was the smart boy of the school who found delight in 
“ragging” his teacher. The contest between the two w^as full of funny 
and unusual experiences, making an absorbing story for boys who 
know the joy of reading about the happy school days and doings. 

JIM DAVIS BY JOHN MASEFIELD 

An excellent story, full of wild adventures, pursuits on land and 
battles at sea, and it is told with a rare simplicity. 

THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN by zane gray 

The record of a trip which the author took with the famous plains- 
man, Buffalo Jones, across the Arizona desert and of an extended 
hunting trip. It is a fascinating, out-of-door book, full of the charm 
of the desert and the canon. 

A MIDSHIPMAN IN THE PACIFIC 

BY CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY 

Here is a boy that is a boy, even w'hen he is the hero of many stirring 
adventures. Mr. Brady has surpassed himself in writing this story 
of Midshipman Martin Fuller, U. S. N. 

PITCHING IN A PINCH by Christy mathewson 

A series of gripping stories of the Big Leaguers, told by “Matty”, 
the star pitcher of the New York Giants. 

THE RANCHE ON THE OXHIDE by henry inman 

“Buffalo Bill” and Custer are characters in this story of frontier life 
in Kansas, when wolves, panthers, buffaloes and Indians were familiar 
sights to the ranchman. 

{^List Continued) 


GROSSET & DUNLAP, Pubushers, NEW YORK 


EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY 


BOY SCOUT EDITION 


Continued from preceding page — 


■REDNEY McGAW by Arthur e. mcfarlane 

Since the days when James Otis “Toby Tyler” was so enthusi- 
astically received by juvenile readers, there has been no more 
refreshing circus story than Redney McGaw. 

THE SCHOOL DAYS OF ELLIOT GRAY, Jr. 

BY COLTON MAYNARD 
A Story of life in an American boy’s school which for hearty, whole- 
some, boyish fun and high ideal vies with “Tom Brown’s School Days.” 

THREE YEARS BEHIND THE GUNS by lieu tisdale 

The true chronicles of a “diddy-box” set down by a boy who ran 
away to sea. A record at firsthand of life on a modern American man- 
of-war. 

TOM PAULDING by brander Matthews 

An absorbing story of the search for buried treasure in the streets 
of New York City during the Revolutipnary period. 

TOMMY REMINGTON’S BATTLE 

by burton E. STEVENSON 
It tells of a miner’s boy with a thirst for knowledge, who has a 
struggle to decide betw’een supporting his parents and taking advan- 
tage of a great opportunity for education. 

TECUMSEH’S YOUNG BRAVES 

BY EVERETT T. TOMLINSON 
A story of the uprising of the Creek Indians during the War of 1812. 
It deals mainly with the adventures of three young Indians, and of 
Tom and Jerry Curry, twin brothers, whose home was right in the 
midst of the hostile scenes. 

TOM STRONG, WASHINGTON’S SCOUT 

BY ALFRED BISHOP MASON 
The principal characters, a boy and a trapper, are in the Revolution- 
ary army from the defeat at Brooklyn to the victory at Yorktown. 
Washington, Nathan Hale and other historic characters appear. The 
story is historically correct. 

(^List Continued) 


GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK 


EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY 


BOY SCOUT EDITION 


Continued from preceding page— 


' TREASURE ISLAND by Robert louis stevenson 

A tale of pirates and treasure-trove. A boy’s book, full of adventure 
and also abounding in beautiful descriptions in the unique style of 
the author. 


UNGAVA BOB A Tale of the Fur Trappers 

BY DILLON WALLACE 

This tale of the young fur trapper in the frozen bJorth, has all the 
excitement and thrilling adventure that any boy could wish. Bob’s 
experiences on the trail, in the Indian’s camp, on the abandoned ship 
which he sailed into port, make fascinating reading. 

WELLS BROTHERS: THE YOUNG CATTLE KINGS 

BY ANDY ADAMS 

Two boys make friends by taking charge of a wounded cattleman, 
and he and his friends help them to start in the cattle business. The 
story of the struggle to get on their feet is eventful and entertaining^ 

THE WIRELESS MAN by Francis Arnold collins 

Contains a host of true stories of wireless adventure on land and sea, 
far stronger and more fascinating than fiction. You are introduced 
to many a delightful character new to romance, the wireless doctor, 
soldier, sailor, and carried rapidly through their adventures. There 
is a technical chapter which the amateur wireless operator will find 
invaluable. Just the book for boys and the book to make one a boy 
again. 

THE WRECKING MASTER by Ralph d. paine 

A story of the Florida reefs where the business of saving wrecked 
ships is one calling for skill, daring and courage of a high order. Dan 
Frazier, a boy just out of high school, becomes involved in the 
frustrating of a plot to wreck an English vessel. 

YANKEE SHIPS AND YANKEE SAILORS 

- BY JAMES BARNES 

Stirring narratives of valiant deeds. The incidents are drawn from 
history and tradition and many of them are of the kind which the new 
system of warfare has now made possible. 


GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK 


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